The Peace & Anarchy Series
by Strange Bint
Summary: AU Series: Dru was never turned by Angelus, but Angelus still haunts them. Spike & Dru are married in Victorian England. They have a daughter with a special fate. The Series takes you from her infancy to her 18th birthday. Oc: Faith
1. Default Chapter

R - English - Action/Adventure/Drama - Published: 01-17-04 - Updated: 01-17-04 id:1689977   
  
  
  
"Perhaps, I am the true villianess after all. I should have killed him, or at least let you and we could have left MY wishes for the fairy tales." She trembled.   
  
"You think that's what I bloody care about? That's not what I want to hear from you and you know it, Love!" William then grabbed her by the forearms and lifted her up onto the desk.   
  
That is when she knew, she had done some unspeakable awful thing. She had been punished for things she had done, but never by him. The punisher's hands had been bigger than William's. They could enclose her whole forearm. Of course they did, she had become a child again with him. It was rather a traditional family. The father punished as the mother mostly stood by idly, but the mother often thought of the punishment.   
  
Drusilla's original family hadn't been that traditional. Her first father could never spend this much time with her, but he had been kind. But, this father and mother could be kind too. They told her they were kinder than her original family, who did not want her any longer because she was an affront to God. The vision's Drusilla saw of the future (and the past, and people's insides and outs, then it was hard to know the order of things. It was hard to know what was the fairy tale and what was real) were welcomed in this family. But, Drusilla seemed to have a wicked nature that tore families and their members apart. The father wanted to make her really one of them. She would be his real daughter now (or not real and his daughter). The mother would not allow it, though. She grew jealous and cruel and the father had to send Drusilla away, or the mother would do something unspeakable as she often did to others. See, the father really did love her. How could he not when he had saved her? He wasn't one to save people usually. Drusilla was special, his little doll, he said.   
  
Drusilla's real family, or what was left of them, then found her, or what was left of her. They DID want her. They wanted her back to who she had been before. She unlearned almost all of her madness and oddities. Her real Mum got her a talking doctor. She realized what she always knew, she was no longer a child and her other family had been evil monsters. The doctor insisted that they were not REAL monsters anymore than she had REAL visions. Wasn't believing these things just a way to stay a child? It was time to put away such childish things. She had her own child now, who was real, and not a doll tossed this way and that. Drusilla was responsible for her.   
  
Her family, now only with its women, was so kind to her. She almost made it back to that girl she had been. But, Drusilla truly did not wish to unlearn all her wickedness. She learned to love her visions. They allowed her to rescue her man and then at least have her child. (She had lost children. They all started to look like dolls then, and they often got lost or broken.) She had made her own family now, and no she was not a child.   
  
Wasn't that what her original family wanted? For Drusilla's mother it was too little, much too late. Her man was the wrong sort of seed. Drusilla was the wrong kind of flower. A Venus flytrap, trying so very hard to be a rose. She had been in the wrong arrangements before. She thought she was properly arranged now with her own family. But, all the wilting flowers in her original family arrangement, didn't think so.   
  
The talking doctor explained to her mother that Drusilla needed to hold on to some of her delusions in order to make sense of what happened because it had been so horrid. He had told her mother that Drusilla had purposely created a similar archaic life to master the unpleasantness she experienced. Her mother asked him if there were pills for this sort of thing.   
  
So, Drusilla failed her family yet again. No matter what she arranged it never looked right to them. Of course they had a right to judge. Now, she had done something horribly wrong to William as well and he was going to punish her too. Her intuition was never wrong, but with all that had happened her perception could be.   
  
"Just tell me, Dru. I already know it's true. I just want to hear te words." William pleaded as he gripped her arms, as if he was the one being punished. She realized what he wanted from her. Sticks and stones weren't the only things that hurt. Someone had to have said something to put the sticks and stones in motion. The right words make a daisy chain that a man could get hung by. The right daisy chain could shackle a girl into madness. Her William wanted those specific words again, that made the hurtful things happen. He so much liked words, almost as much as he liked feelings. Someone always wanted something. Actually, he was the bad one that needed to be punished, but she could never punish him because all of his evilness was due to her.   
  
"Evil, naughty, and wicked! Do you think you can demand it out of me? You act as though it's my choice just speak the words...As if there won't be a price. Nothing is for free in this world, Pet" Drucilla demanded. "Don't you think I know that...I've paid, I'm paying, Dru. It's not bloody fair! I gave you a baby! I'm trying my hardest to make the world the way you want!" William had said and twisted his bottom lip. This was after he wrote and reflected. He stroked his upper lip where he couldn't grow a good mustache, so he had given up long ago. Forever a boy.   
  
"The world...the way I want, with no mean men and their mean laws?" She indulged the fantasy for a moment with closed eyes. It was fuzzy. Not as real as a vision.   
  
"That's the idea. We can do whatever we like...It can happen, Love. It's happening, if we just get enough people together ..No one will hold power over us anymore! Everything will be free." He smiled the branding iron smile. That was the trouble everyone couldn't be free if anyone had to use a branding iron, and someone always had to use one to be free.   
  
"Button, Button, whose got the button...Someone will always hold the power." She had smiled because She knew where the real waking world was now. Her William was the real waking world.   
  
"Love, for the last time, we will only hold it over ourselves." He insisted smiling as she backed him into the bed.   
  
"Such an idealist! That won't work. Someone will always want something." She said as she laid down on top of him.   
  
"Please tell me." He demanded softly looking up at her. She had liked dolls when she was with her other family because they never looked at you like this.   
  
"Look at my creation. Molded out of a boy too scared to walk me home. Now you demand answers from me? Little mongrel is quiet the dog now." She teased.   
  
"Sometimes I do fear that you are not able to say it to me because it isn't true...Don't I make you happy?" He was cruelest when he meant not to be.   
  
"Don't you know your wife at all?...You understand me when no one else does. I will always be with you. When you are gone for more than an hour I want to cry. I live to rewrite my painful tale into something beautiful with you. What I live for allows us to live-here! In this cozy room...There is the rest of the house that your writing bought, and the little house my fairy lives in...But, I really only want to live here in this room with you in me. But, even when we are out room my head is signing with the only other one I want to be with...our daughter." She spoke these words laughing as she knelt up and undressed for him.   
  
"All that...Six years... and you cant tell me you love me!..I should go on strike...I won't write any more of your life until I am told what I want." He laughed and she pulled his hair.   
  
"There is always a price...It's like a bad spell I cast." She grumbled after she bent down and kissed him.   
  
"Doesn't the sodding shrink have anything to say about this?" He demanded. More questions about the talking doctor. It was only fair, the talking doctor asked so much about him.   
  
"I told him...All the men who I have spoke the words of love to have died...All the daisies I plant with the seeds of my love whither and die. I need to keep my daisies for my husband alive."   
  
"And what did he say, Poodle?"   
  
"He said...He said I was obsessed with making love to you because you give me the right kind of pleasure, and I think I need to hold power over you to get it, and that is why I don't speak of my love....He says we should make love less... Oh! I also am obsessed someone is going to hurt my privates and that is why I speak in riddles. He said I should wear thick bloomers to try to speak normally." She laughed and held her stomach as if she remembered the best dirty joke.   
  
"Bloody hell!... If you know it's bollucks Dru, why do you go?" He demanded rolling over on his side to scowl at her.   
  
"To show that I want to be a good girl for my mum and the rest...and be well...Everyone loves a pretty flower." She said gravely trying to forget about weeds strangling roots in the earth.   
  
"You are well! I love you. It's all over, pet. Just tell me you love me, and you'll see how it is all behind you...It really can all be a story, like you want...None of it will have hold on you anymore. It won't torture you anymore." He caressed her face. She closed her eyes, and kissed his hand.   
  
"You know nothing of torture." She said with a far away look. He laid his head down on her breast to apologize. It was true, compared to her he did know nothing of torture. Then he heard her laughing. She wasn't serious. Part of him was cross at her for not being so. She had undressed him and lay on top of him kissing him between laughing. It was so much easier to write the villain of her story than he thought. He would want to steal her too if she hadn't been the one to come to him.   
  
"Torture is like the sun. It can burn you; set you on fire, but it's needed to keep us warm and stuck to the floor. It's distant and scorching and necessary...A mean daddy doling out resources...What would a poet only writing about love who thought his future wife was a pickpocket know of torture?" She giggled. He caressed her backside.   
  
"You'd be bloody surprised!" He grumbled smacking her backside. She yelped, then whined, then laughed.   
  
"Oh yes...You had a whore before me. I'm glad your a socialist now and no longer a capitalist." She could be lucidly witty for a mad girl. He wasn't worried she was mad. He already knew that she was. And wasn't- not really. She just played mad like possums play dead. She had to be strong to protect herself if he wasn't there. No. They didn't have to worry about such incidents anymore. Perhaps that why she could be so petty about the past now.   
  
"Sod the socialist! We're anarchists now, Love... I refuse to make a fool of myself with passivity! You know I only went to the lady for you. You cant sit and write a symphony without first having a piano teacher. You had already had a lover, and all I had were my West End school boy crushes." He grinned.   
  
"Don't mention him." She shuttered. His eyes went cold for a second.   
  
Who did she think he was mentioning anyway?   
  
"Well, you should know better than to torture me with my shameful past now that I have my wondrous reputation...What the 'ol accountant was that bad in the sack? Is that why you called off the engagement?" He heard himself say, even though he knew why she called of the engagement. He wished he had been the reason, but he hadn't known her yet. She had yet to literally bump into him while he was literally crying over that silly girl. Ironically, there was a way in which his past had been more shameful than hers. Perhaps the one that saves you from your past has a right to torture you from it.   
  
"Shut your naughty mouth, Doggie." She whispered as she held his wrists above his head. He did the opposite opening his mouth wide to kiss her. He thought she had to love him. She was of a frail nature physically. That is why they had to have the sodding Nanny. But, she would expend enormous amounts of energy on top of him. That is what she chose to use it all for, and she enjoyed it so. She said sex was like the opposite of her visions. She said she couldn't control herself or the way she felt in either, but one was pleasurable as much as the other painful. Both had been blamed for driving her mad, but in making love she could feel and know herself. The head-shrinker said she was obsessed with making love with him. Whoever said that logical sods knew nothing of beauty unless they were lovers in disguise was right. He doubted her head shrinker knew anything of love, though he was a pervert.   
  
"Hmmm. Naughty boy!" She was trying to cover her mouth to quiet herself, but he held her hands down. She was too loud. She shut her eyes now because now he was kissing her neck, which was something he rarely did. She knew it was because he hated the scars there. He'd never kiss the scars, he would just get ever so close. He did know something of torture after all. He hated being reminded of the other. The other liked to go back to the places he made vulnerable. There were two more scars that she was thankful were difficult to notice. Even if you saw her naughties everyday for five years. William flipped her on her back. "Bad girl! Did I ask you to try to cover your mouth?...I asked you to look-at-me." Had he? She didn't hear she had been busy opening and opening...a drusilla blooming. When she obeyed this time he looked like the skinny boy who won the prize fight money against the town bully. Meanwhile, he had slipped in so gently. But, he always did fight insidiously as well as proudly.   
  
She moaned, but unlike her moans during visions she could hear herself, feel herself, even though she forgot all that concerned her.   
  
He knew she couldn't look at him. When things crash into you so much bigger than yourself your brain closes your eyes. Like in sleep and sneezing. She was so unhappy when she realized someone else shuts them for you in death, but now she understood. People can make you shut your eyes. She pressed her ear to his mouth as he cried out.   
  
William knew she could tell him with her eyes what she couldn't in words. She was finally looking at him. Letting him know she was more than satisfied. A strip of his hair came lose and hung in her face. She held it between her teeth. She told him it tasted like honey even though he sweat as men did when they were making love. He demanded her eyes. Those green-violet marbles that held far too much of every emotion. They held everything he cared about in their pupils alone. But, he was the one who would become weak and open mouthed when he had those eyes on him for too long.   
  
She put her hand on his chest and felt his heart still pounding to the rhythm he moved in. She laid on his chest and opened her eyes suddenly. He knew something forced her to. This often happened to her after a good shag, like the visions made her pay the piper. His poor girl.   
  
"I'm right here poodle...What do you spy?" He asked pressing her to him. "It's just my one of my old story books...I spy with my little eye the morning I was to take my holy orders..." She sighed as if it bored her, but he could still hear her breath shake at the end.   
  
"It's not real anymore, Love...It's over. You're safe with me." He kissed her forehead pleadingly.   
  
"I only spy that morning." She assured him, "Mother Superior is telling me the oatmeal is soothing...I thought it was...It warmed my insides...She was my best Mummy...but, nothing can be as soothing as you and Divya...Even if my best Mummy would feel betrayed...I was not to be a Mum...or a lover, if only I'd never been a lover." She said sadly, as she clung to him.   
  
"If she truly cared for you she'd understand, Love...and not just about me and Divya.." Her eyes softened when she looked at him, but they were constantly plagued. He was actually the mad one. Sometimes he thought if he looked close enough into her he could see what she saw. He would gladly look upon the sturdy smiling woman Drusilla often described. He would even view her as she died screaming with the 57 others if it meant Dru didn't have to anymore. He threw the blanket from India over them. He was going to tell her he still had her doll, the one she tried to throw away because of the shrink. He was going to tell her that it was all right to keep childish things if that was what pleased her.   
  
There was a loud knock on the oak door. She did become a child in that moment again. She whined brattily and grabbed his arm as he rose to answer the door. She hated these intrusions as much as he did, maybe more, but she made them possible. She let everyone in. She felt she had to pay for joy and William was sure this knock was the bitch who collected the rent.   
  
"Bloody Hell!" William cursed and dressed in haste.   
  
If things hadn't been over with and if it had been past dawn he would be fretting that something dreadful had happened to his daughter. He would be fretting who was on the other side of his door and what they had to say about his little bit, or even someone else. However, in the present he was only as mad as hell.   
  
The bitch would be pleased. She looked like angel or saint on a mass card because he was overly backlit by the sunlight in the hallway. This reminded William to get rid of the cross that laid behind the bed. It had been put there long after he renounced the faith and now it was thankfully just as useless.   
  
"Excuse me, Sir.. But, I was wondering if the lady was all right. I heard some dreadful noise." The old bitty said. So polite, with all the hate in her eyes she could muster for William. You see, the nanny was a spy for Drusilla's mother to see just how much the no good bastard poet was corrupting her daughter. Word was all they did was write of Drusilla's delusions all day, and they hung with hedonists who wanted to over throw the government by night.   
  
"The lady is fine. As long as I'm present I'll make sure of it. There is no need to worry." William smirked obnoxiously at her.   
  
"Well, most men aren't around during the day. Most men work, and ladies have company with other ladies." The bitty shot out. The pitch of his voice peaked on "day" and went sliding down hill after.   
  
"Betty, I am so sorry, Mrs. Finn. I tried to explain before. You have never worked for artists before, I know. But, we aren't natural people. We work odd hours and take odd breaks. We both work actually together-though my husband does most of it." Drusilla giggled, but it was apologetic, like a schoolgirl who giggled when she was caught stealing chalk. William watched her pay rent in her own house to make love to her husband.   
  
"You are wrong on all counts, Love. You have powers of seeing things I can only dream, and I merely write them. " He managed to smile now, pissed as he was. "You translate my bizarre thoughts and words. No one would ever understand a word I said without him. We would make no money otherwise." Drusilla explained to Betty patiently. Indeed, it looked like the poor Betty was lost now. Why did she look angry? Was she ashamed she had to be taken in by them, since her mother's home was so empty now?   
  
"Sod money!-And, baby, you are wrong that we are not natural people. These are our walls and whatever we decide is natural with in them is what's natural." William finished sternly. Drusilla looked at him crossly.   
  
"Don't worry, Betty. I am fine...You see William, Mrs. Finn has seen me through awful times, and she is just concerned for me." Drusilla said looking sternly at him.   
  
He knew she had loved Betty like a mother. The woman had loved her too, once. But, too much had happened. Drusilla had changed too much. Betty had lost her husband in Drusilla's home. Drusilla was the one who found him. They say had fallen down the stairs. Later Drusilla had run (or was taken) from the convent and abandoned the church all together. The latter had hurt the woman most of all. There were just so many things that Betty could never understand. "You have a child now, Miss. She might be concerned when she hears you making such noise in the middle of the day." The woman said coldly. Drusilla could see the frost coming out of Betty's mouth. There was a picture of the woman in her mind and she looked like a corpse who spoke these words. With this image before her, Drusilla covered her mouth as she let out a small whimper. Without passion we are truly dead.   
  
"I spy with my little eye the inside, William. She's so cold." She whispered to her husband who had pulled her close to him. People often thought she was rude because she wisphered to William in the middle of conversation. It would be far more rude to tell them what she saw.   
  
"My daughter is nine months old, Mrs. Finn. Her only concern is my wife's breast, and for that I envy her." William snapped. This bitch didn't realize that when she directed her ugliness at his wife, she literally had to see it. Or maybe she did.   
  
"William!" Dru shrieked. But, then she had to struggle to repress her laughter. He wasn't going to let this woman make his wife feel guilty for any second of happiness she had. That seemed to be the only thing she took pleasure in other than caring for the baby. Drusilla claimed this woman loved her too, but Dru seemed to have trouble mistaking sadism for love.   
  
Drucilla was outright laughing now, dressed in a sari from India. She had always appreciated his wit. She seemed to know it was there before he did, and it could snap her out of any sad trance she was in.   
  
"I sometimes wonder if you are all right, my lady. You allow things around here that make me think that you never recovered from your madness after the unpleasantness at the convent." The woman said all pretense of her respect leaving. Drusilla was immediately quiet as if someone struck her. This bitch's time was up.   
  
"That is it! You can take all your black dresses and rosaries and all the rest of your things that time has past and they can bloody help you go elsewhere!" William yelled every muscle in his jaw tensing. The woman jumped. Drusilla did not.   
  
"Such a fine anarchist you are! Talking about property, law, and pulling rank!" She blustered and pouted. He smiled again as Dru stamped her foot. It made little noise because it was bare. No doubt something the nanny found appalling. "Oh, baby." He sighed "If only it were that easy to just give it all up." "You are not going anywhere, Mrs. Finn...Mr.William is just have another one of his tantrums." Dru snipped.   
  
"Speaking of property, Where is my little bit? How is she? " He had turned his head to the nanny now. Who looked at him with bewilderment and hatred.   
  
"My child? Our daughter? The reason you are here...Where is she?" He demanded a bit more loudly then he planned.   
  
"I'll get her, Sir." The woman said lowly.   
  
William went walking into the hall the sun stinging his eyes. Betty Finn came into the hall with the baby. The woman's face actually looked a bit happy. She whispered to the baby. Things he couldn't hear. Maybe it was about what a bastard he was, driving her poor mother to sin.   
  
"You can give her to me, Mrs." William said sweetly now. Drusilla told him babies understood tone. She said tone was the real language the rest was just "sprinkles on the cake." She was right. But, William could turn that rule on its head. The woman looked at him bemused.   
  
"Men can hold babies. I don't even think it's considered a sin." He said in a soft pleasant way.   
  
When she handed him the baby the usual thing happened. Drusilla would often describe to him visions and sensations she had that most people didn't. Holding Divya was the closest he could come to it. She was like holding a little spark. She made his chest fill up and his arms felt weak with love. But, she would tell him in her wiggling little way that his arms were strong enough to do all that they had to do. Lately, what he had to do was easy.   
  
"Divya...Daddy has some unpleasantness he needs to attend to...I think your Nanny knows what it is." He smiled and cooed to the baby.   
  
"Sir?" The nanny asked bitterly.   
  
"If you ever disrespect my wife again by questioning her ability to mother our girl or bringing up the subject of her being ill or the convent I'll see you bloody starve in the street... The fact that you changed my wife's diapers holds no weight with me if you bring her any unhappiness." He said pleasantly.   
  
"I don't think it is going to be me that brings her unhappiness. I think it's you young men of this graceless age that will lead her to hell...At least the tall she had the sense not to marry was respectful, even if he was Irish." She snipped. William smiled, and the woman flinched. It wasn't a smile he always had. Dru called it his branding iron smile,because you look like you are going to scar someone for life...I don't like it, not at all. But, then she would always laugh.   
  
"You're damn bloody right...I can be far more a monster than that sodding bastard, because if you hurt her...I'll leave you alive, so you can actually live to experience hell. No rest for the wicked, Mrs." He sang sweetly. William kissed the top of the baby's head.   
  
Mrs. Finn had taken off in fright, or disgust, or with a new thing to report to Dru's Mum. He hadn't really cared to look at her face. Dru said with all the fighting his mightiest weapon was his tongue. He had always known exactly what people did not want to hear about themselves. Before, he had wanted everyone to approve of him so much he would go out of his way to never say the cruel things he knew. He would stumble on himself not to say them. He was afraid of what he understood of others insecurities back then. Maybe he thought people knew of his insecurities as well, or they hated him for knowing theirs. It was hard to remember. He hadn't cared for the approval of others in years, or maybe he never really had. Maybe he only ever cared about not letting vulgarians destroy what he loved. There were vulgarians everywhere, and William finally learned to fight fire with fire.   
  
"The tyranny comes in all shapes and sizes, Bit...But you will fight it all! You special girl!." William smiled sadly.   
  
"BHAP! BADA DADA!" Divia squealed happily.   
  
William walked back to his bedroom with Divya. The baby was laughing and squealing approval.   
  
"Fly Pigeon!...Fly Pigeon!...You keep falling...Stay up! No falling! My girl will fly." William sang to her. He was throwing her up in the air and catching her when he saw the disapproval on his wife's face as she sat at the desk.   
  
"Sorry...I just figure we should toughen her a bit...No sense waiting." He smiled nervously as the baby pulled his hair now. Dru looked so tiered.   
  
"Are you angry about Mrs. Finn, Love?...I'm sorry. Her fate with us is up to you of course. But, I can't have people hurt you, Pet...You know I can't." He said gently. He knelt at her lap now with Divya as if he was presenting her as a gift.   
  
"You are to easily brought to your knees by queens...You are not going to be tough enough on our daughter...She will think she can run over everyone when she's angry." She smiled sadly as she put her arm around the baby.   
  
"Well, she can, can't she? No sod will get her! Are these cards telling you I let her run a muck? " He asked as he knelt at the desk looking at the tarot cards she laid out. "No! A blind fly could see that you will spoil her rotten!" She laughed.   
  
He recognized many of these cards. Funny how the same ones got dealt out again and again. He saw one he hadn't remembered- a heart with swords running threw it.   
  
"Why is the emperor sod upside-down? What do you spy from this, Poodle? Is a labor strike going bust?" He asked pointing to the card.   
  
"I'm afraid that's my position in this." She pointed to the blindfolded woman "I am not sure...It distresses me...I'm a blindfolded seer, you see." She smiled at irony as she always did, but whispered. He thought she was being mellow dramatic, but he saw that the baby was asleep.   
  
"The time has come for me to put away these things." She said seriously shaking her head. She threw all the cards into the trash can accept for the queen of swords and the king of cups. Her lips were trembling, even though she tried to hide it as she looked at the remaining two cards.   
  
"Dru, don't throw the cards away if it upsets you... I don't care what the bloody shrink says! You're special Dru, not mad! Do you think he wants to understand that? Do you think any of them can?" He insisted in whisper.   
  
"I don't want to be special any longer. Being mad was less painful...I just want be ordinary, and make you happy, Da-" She bit her lip suddenly and shook her head. "I wish I could be ordinary for our happiness." She said simply. She promised herself she was going to stop prattling on. She shouldn't have told him the visions she had this morning. She seemed to prattle on when she was alone with him, talking what other people would hear as gibberish   
  
"Bloody ordinary? For our happines?" He snapped. She had to laugh when the baby woke and cried only because he looked so guilty after looking so indignant.   
  
"You saved me from a hellish life of ordinariness. You saw I wasn't happy being ordinary and saved me...They need their lovers back, Dru." He said quietly. He handed her the baby who began to suckle.   
  
"For once, you make less sense than I do." She smiled, bemused.   
  
"The king of cups needs a queen and the queen of swords needs a king. You can't just keep them alone." He sighed as he rustled through the trash.   
  
"Maybe they go off together." She laughed sadly.   
  
"Nonsense they weren't made for each other! I'm sure it's against some law." He teased.   
  
"You're an anarchist, William." She laughed.   
  
"Well, it's not my kingdom, is it?" He smiled at her.   
  
"I want it to be." She said.   
  
"Okay...well...Those two need their lovers back and they need the rest of the kingdom too...and they need these other people with the star plates because they look important..."   
  
"Those are pentacles. You should know what pentacles are. Remember when-- I really should throw them away. They are very classist...with kings and queens and emperors...These things squirm into your brain."   
  
"Well, we can have this little Git overthrow the emperor." He suggested holding up the fool. She shook her head.   
  
"This one." She said holding up the king of cups.   
  
"Him again...All right, but does he have a lady? I never saw her."   
  
"He does but she just likes to watch...She knows so much that she's a fool too."   
  
"Well, her time has come to do more than watch...She has to help overthrow here."   
  
She was sleeping again. He had been told if she falls asleep during the day to wake her, or she would never sleep at night. He disobeyed, because she seldom slept at night regardless. It was just Dru listening to the so-called experts who were out to mold mothers and babies, so they could look like experts. His girl could sleep whenever she wanted. He took her to the bed. He put her next to the baby, who was wide awake. The baby squealed happily.   
  
"Bit, shhhhhh.." He said picking her up.   
  
"I love you, Daddy! Thank you for the broken dollies dress!" Drusilla laughed, still asleep. William smiled. He knew. She DID love him. Then he scowled. Something was rotten in his bed. He didn't want to face it.   
  
"Oh bugger! Not now, Ducks! I have no idea where the diapers are" He grumbled.   
  
"I need the diapers." He grumbled to Mrs. Finn.   
  
"Where is the lady? Sleeping again?" She demanded her mouth twitching.   
  
"She needs to take sleep when it comes...Where are the nappies?" He sighed.   
  
"The lady will never get well if you keep inviting those radicals over every night." She stated looking at the baby.   
  
"She IS well! Just tell me where the bloody nappies are!" He snapped.   
  
"Please." He said lower now. He didn't understand his sudden politeness.   
  
"I can change Divya." She said softly now. He was impressed she had said her name correctly most people did not.   
  
"No...I'll do it." He told her. The woman seemed to decide she still had to oversee the diaper changing.   
  
"My Ducky fights dirty..dirty!" He said. "La! Ma, ma, ma!" Divya responded.   
  
"She knows you, as well the lady...If she hears either of you she cries for you...So, you should be quiet...When you want to be alone." Mrs. Finn said curtly. He couldn't help but smile. She had dropped all of her "sirs" and "misters" and sort of reminded his Mum when she was cross.   
  
"Of course she knows me...I'm her only Daddy...She has no other...Right, Pigeon?" He smiled at the baby ignoring the woman's criticisms.   
  
"Drusilla's father ... He loved all four of the girls so, but he sort of didn't know how to approach them until they began to talk...Most men were like that in the Drake family." The woman sighed.   
  
"Well, I didn't know any of them long enough to learn of their traditions. I only met Mr. Drake. He was the ONLY one who cared if Dru was happy as I do." He said distantly as the baby grasped his finger.   
  
"I know what you did for him...When he passed, you know " She said softly. William glared at her, hoping that she would run off again.   
  
"Don't give me that look again! Only I and some other servants who found his body know...It was a kind thing you did, getting the law to help you say it was his heart...if the Drake women knew another one of their men had been slain...it would have broken them...especially Drusilla...I'm sure it was difficult covering it up, but the Lord was on your side." She actually smiled at him.   
  
"I don't know what you are bloody talking about! But, I can tell you this, you have no idea about what Dru and I have had to contend with alone...with no one on our side...not the law...certainly not any God." His voice shook, but he wasn't angry at the woman.   
  
"You are still such a boy! Boys think they are the only ones who know anything of the world. You think you are the only one who has ever swore at me and threatened me? I was a nurse for the army when your own father was having his diapers changed! Those boys spat at me when I was trying to give them their medicine too. You think I've been locked in the Drake house all my life and have never seen suffering before they had it? You think I don't know how Drusilla suffers!" She snapped   
  
"You may know things, but whatever you know it's not enough or you wouldn't lecture my wife on things she cannot control. If you knew how and why and ...who brought about her suffering you would only show her kindness...Not remind her of the God that left her soaked in Nuns blood! " His voice was quiet, but got slower and thicker.   
  
"I do not blame her for any of her suffering, but she can chose now to be with moral people or lose her way! The curse that has fallen upon the Drake's has nothing to do with the Lord, and-"   
  
"Yes, some God-fearing people think it has everything to do with my wife and her visions." He scowled.   
  
"Some people are disgusting fools God-fearing and not. Don't you think I told her Mum that blasted Doctor won't bring her any happiness...He is trying to make the girl deny herself ...Drusilla is a good girl. She should have peace and happiness."   
  
"So we agree, Mrs." He smiled slyly as her confused face changed back to irritated.   
  
"No mortal man is going to bring Drusilla happiness! A man can give a woman pleasure, but only God will bring her happiness, and I will make sure she finds happiness...Sir."   
  
"You know, You have a nobility about you I am impressed with. I think you are very selfless, really...I almost regret the fact that I must turn my girl against you for her own good, Mrs. Finn." He smiled sincerely.   
  
"  
  
I assure you the feeling is mutual, Sir." She did not smile.   
  
One thing William had learned was that women could be very worthy adversaries. Sometimes he was beneath them as an opponent. In their book the vampire women could rip a man apart. It was shocking and titillating to readers. It was shocking to him, what people refused to believe. You should never underestimate your opponent. Cut them down lest they cut you.   
  
"Is there a fight?" a soft voice called. She entered looking ache white, as if she was not well. But, she was well. She was just afraid, because she knew. She knew the rage her husband held for this woman who cared for his child. William felt incredible guilt.   
  
"Drusilla...No...We were just having a discussion about our mutual respect despite our theological differences." He said taking her hand. He doubted Mrs. Finn was taught what theological meant in her nursing school.   
  
"I passed by Mrs. Finn's room. It has an air of such aggression to it." She shuddered.   
  
"No, Mrs....Just sayin' maybe you ought to have Miss Divya baptized is all...Wash her clean." Mrs. Finn said so ernastly. William had under estimated the woman, and so he was hit. He scoffed loudly, but before he could argue Drusilla spoke.   
  
"Clean! Oh no my girl is dirty! There is nothing more frightening than a soul scrubbed clean, Mrs. Finn." She shuddered again and took the baby from William as if he was going to baptize her himself. William wrapped his arms around Dru's waist. The baby looked at him and smiled.   
  
"You know in the book reviews they say the book William wrote is immoral and sometimes they say it is amoral and then they go on to say it is good despite that." Drusilla said in her best calm tone. William knew it was false.   
  
"Well, I must say I-" Finn began.   
  
"We BOTH wrote the book, Pet." William said softly.   
  
"I'd rather be immoral than amoral. It's better to have the wrong morals than none. The wrong morals have a chance to turn into something good, but to be free...to be clean.. of any morals...It's just too horrid!" She gasped.   
  
"Mrs. Drusilla..." Mrs. Finn did seem shocked now. Her brow furrowed and Drusilla had done what William could not. She made the woman walk away.   
  
"Oh, I am failing so horribly. I promised I wouldn't go on about such things that frighten people." Drusilla laughed now. Mrs. Finn went back to ironing and sighing.   
  
"I'm not frightened...Ducks isn't frightened.." William said as the baby held Drusilla's fingers, "You go on as much as you like."   
  
"Don't you want me to be pleasant? The doctor says I should be pleasant on the outside and then it will fill in." She said in a half sarcastic way.   
  
"I want you. I want you to be happy not pleasant, and I want to pound the doctor in the head with a railroad spike." William grumbled.   
  
"Perhaps we should bring our Divya to the church... She is going to be willful and disobedient like her father... It's going to bring trouble...Perhaps if she has faith, it will be comforting. We all need faith in something." Drusilla looked at William with innocent eyes.   
  
"Do you have faith, Mrs.?" Mrs. Finn suddenly was back, looking Drusilla straight in the eye, making her look away from William.   
  
"I have faith in my daughter and my husband...I have faith they find themselves in every life...There is this wonderful religion in India, Mrs. Finn...that we lead many lives over and over we come back to this world...One priestess said that the people in our lives are always with us but we change places like in Alice's tea party...You may have been my real mum is another life." William saw his wife smile at that thought for some reason.   
  
"Mrs. Drusilla I think that is entirely wrong!" Mrs. Finn gasped.   
  
"I think so too...My take is more scientific...There are so many stars out there...Many planets...All with different names..I think their are universes with other Mrs. Finn's and Drusillas and Divyas...But, maybe it is all true! Maybe the lot of us go 'round n' 'round in our different stars AND the same souls have different lives on those stars! I sometimes can feel I had a different life, and I can see all the stars with all the girls that have the same name...Drusilla...No, sometimes the name is different too! The souls are the same. They all have the same name--- The souls!" She had her eyes closed and was tilted back with Divya chewing on her hair "Couldn't it be true, William? Haven't many things turned out to be true, William?" She asked only him gleefully.   
  
"I am sure your right in some capacity, Love...If you see it, I'm sure it's there." He smiled. He grabbed hold of her so she did not tilt back too far and took her hair out of the babies mouth.   
  
" ..A heaven, a hell, a God, no many Gods! Many universes with people being reincarnated over and over with their dirty souls! Isn't all so wondrous, William!" She squealed. excitedly.   
  
"I do so love you, Drusilla." William said and kissed her.   
  
When his wife left the nanny sprung on William, which he rather enjoyed. Just leave Drusilla be.   
  
"That is not Drusilla! That is a mad girl! I've known her all her life, and she would never be so blasphemous! It's you! You keep her mad lest she see the snake you are! You-you respect no order- You respect nothing! You only want for yourself!"   
  
That was the trouble with anarchists and with his wife. It was all talk, standing about-semantics and metaphysics. Mostly, the group sat around with their good arguments with food and wine and cocaine. He wished that they could act, but he had to admit he didn't mind nights like this waiting.   
  
Everyone was reciting the same usual lines. William made his usual jokes of being bored by this discussion. The party would have to reach out to the lower class if they really wanted to achieve anything and so on. He made his usual threat that if it continued he would move into the worst catacombs of the East End and sleep with the rats. Alex had made his usual joke that maybe William could be inspired to write a less vile book that way...and so on. William smiled as Drusilla explained her variation on Hinduism to Alex's wife, Willa a cute little redhead. They weren't a traditional couple. They were American and had settled in London for Willa's work in some sort of science. Normally English institutes did not take on Yank female scientists, but she was apparently some sort of genius. The two women had met three years ago when Willa apparently scared away a man pestering Drusilla. It all was an odd vague story. No one would think the perky but clumsy girl was a genius, or that her small frame could scare off a man. The only sure thing was that Drusilla let them live in adjoining house for almost no rent.   
  
"...Well, I am William's wife in this life, in another life I may be his mother, but we will always be in each other's lives because our connection is strong... Not to say we would always be allies...We could come back as each other's enemies-have as much hate as we do love." Drusilla explained to Willa who was genuinely interested.   
  
"Now that I could never believe. I could never hate you, baby. I'm nothing without you in any life." William smiled passing by.   
  
"I think between love and hate are like yin and yang, one can't exist without the other if you love someone so much doesn't part of you have to know hate. Hate is just love turned inside out...It's passion. Someone who hates you so much must really love you...look at all the time they spend thinking about you. It is so easy to jump to the other side." She sighed. William scowled and his fingers balled into fists, but he said nothing.   
  
"This is so very interesting, Dru...I like it better than talking about ending property laws and marriage and planning rallies...I suppose that is wrong, but I feel like we are wasting our time. Nothing changes...ever...I'm afraid." She sighed.   
  
"Everything changes. You will change too. We have to try to change something of the world, or the whole world will fight...It will be dreadful. The falling Duke and his wife will start a trail of blood for thousands!" Drusilla whispered.   
  
"Oh Dru...Don't worry...We'll do what we can." Willa grabbed her arm sincerely.   
  
"Drusilla, what on Earth are you talking about? What duke? There has been no threat to any Duke I've heard of." Harriet demanded.   
  
Blast! Drusilla had been trying to be curt tonight and use everyone else's words and speak they way they spoke, but translating was taxing after a few drinks. Everyone was staring as Harriet's voice had a way of attracting attention.   
  
"Oh, don't be offended.. I meant no harm by it. Sometimes I just speak in metaphors. They just slip-out, like poems. It comes from writing I suppose." Drusilla smiled as everyone looked on. The allegories had not come from writing, but from somewhere in her mind that she could not sculpt. She wished the fallen Duke really had been an allegory.   
  
"Well, maybe you shouldn't do that. I mean, I only say it because I have concern, but people talk." Harriet sighed.   
  
"Oh, do they ever...People talk of poor poor Drusilla Drake Ellington." Drusilla smiled. She wanted to push the Duke out of her mind with a bit of fun. She got up to stand in the center of the room.   
  
"Her family is Nu'vo rich, and only SHE never lost her lowly accent!..They also say she's quite mad, you know? Strange and horrible things happen when she is afoot.." Everyone laughed. Drusilla was a fine performer when need be. She stole William's rolled cigarette for a prop. The air was becoming heavy, and she just couldn't hold that heavy feeling   
  
"They say she went to a convent to try to purge herself of wickedness...But, you know there is no rest for the wicked." She said in a stage whisper to everyone at the party now. She looked around the room as if to make sure it was clear of her own ears, and then took a dramatic drag from the cigarette. Everyone laughed. She went around to everyone looking into each of their eyes with dramatic eeriness. They laughed but always looked away accept for Willa and William. They looked like they were watching an epic tragedy.   
  
"The best rumor I heard was...was-" Emma was interrupted by her own laughing, "That the book was all true...even the vampire part." There was a roar of laughter as this was an intellectual crowd that knew demons and angels were nothing more, but tales to control the masses.   
  
"Oh, I'm sure especially the vampire part!" William threw in jovially.   
  
"Maybe the Drake girl IS one." Drusilla continued.   
  
"They say she knows how to enthrall men with her eyes, but then the man may turn up dead." She said all of this in an eerie whisper.   
  
"Sounds like a good a way to die compared to any other." Alex said and pulled her into his lap. She giggled breaking her stage presence. She hugged him. It was nice to have another entertainer in the house.   
  
"The part she's leaving out is who kills all these men." William warned Alex lightly. As he pulled his wife into his own lap. He was an excellent straight man for all this extemporaneous pieces.   
  
"My boy, I'm not responsible. I'm under her thrall." Alex joked. The party's laughter had died down. However, most ears still lingered.   
  
"There is that rumor that you do kill men,William...with wooden spikes." Alex's wife Willa smirked.   
  
"And there is a rumor your a witch who fancies girls as does your husband...But, they say that about all women of brilliance." William winked.   
  
"I heard one! I heard one! I heard that Drusilla's old lover was that awful murderer and he purposely did the killings the year you married William, and he was some man of great power... Maybe royalty...and that is why they never caught him." Harriet broke in. The two couples grew quiet. William glowered at her his whole body stiffening. The minute Harriet seemed to think she may have said something wrong, Drusilla began to laugh loudly.   
  
"See it's all true the book, the wickedness, all of it." Drusilla laughed. "Death surrounds Drusilla Drake they say."   
  
"Dru don't!" Willa pleaded with her cute pointy face in anguish. People who weren't exactly eavesdropping fell silent to listen more.   
  
"Oh Pet, don't worry its all just noise and fury...People's chatter...I mind so little maybe I do have had a bit of the devil in me." Drusilla smiled.   
  
"Bullocks!" William scoffed. "I wish that were true. Then you'd have the heart to get rid Old World people of little use...and the people that say these things about you." He glared at Harriet who looked at her shoes.   
  
"William, I told you I still have plenty of uses for you." She joked. People admitted they were still listening. That made everyone laugh for a good while.   
  
"Yes, but what use do we have for that frigid woman who calls herself a nanny. She keeps her ear to the wall so she can damn you for shagging your own husband!" William retorted. A few of the women giggled at his language, but most were too high to even notice. People were going back to their own little talks now, not just pretending to. William had signified that the show was truly over by talking more quietly. He only wanted Willa and Alex to be their audience. William was a great director.   
  
"Eeee! After all you've done for that woman to take her on. You didn't want a nanny anyway. Why not get rid of her?" Willa asked.   
  
"Yes, Dru, enlighten us as to why not." William smirked.   
  
"Why don't you just order me to do it, William?...Since she seems to bring that out in you. William becomes a true gentleman around her. So interested in defending his position and station as gentlemen do." Drusilla retorted with a small smile.   
  
"You're saying I've lost my principles of wanting to eliminate all power because I don't want some old hag insulting you after I make love to you?" He demanded lightly.   
  
"I am saying that this shows how ridiculous and impossible holding on to that position is." Drusilla said.   
  
"Oh, this again!" Alex sighed.   
  
"You gotta smash that cage you in, Baby." William insisted.   
  
"But, that's using power isn't it? Its a total paradox, William." Dru insisted.   
  
"No, you are confusing anarchy with being a pacifist- its fighting back...Taking back what's yours!" He insisted.   
  
"Who are you to claim what is yours? What if I say that its not yours, but mine? The one with the most power wins. Its all about power." Drusilla said.   
  
"When can I blow something up, then?" Alex asked.   
  
"Soon, Mate." William smiled.   
  
"I have to agree with Drusilla. You two are always sword fighting with each other with your wits. And look at you! Smiling about the thought of blowing something up...What is more powerful then destroying something even if it is tyranny?" Willa demanded.   
  
"What if I just hit tyranny in the knees with a pipe?" Alex asked.   
  
"Yes, Look at the way you two wrestle each other with your quips." Drusilla said to William's and Alex's eye roll.   
  
"That's just a game, Love. You love games." He smiled lopsidedly.   
  
"Its all a game. We all have been dealt hands that have some power. No cards, no game, no game, no life...You have to get everyone to share their hand is all." She smiled.   
  
"What I find most interesting here..." Duncan, a friend of theirs slurred, "Is that the women are being more realistic than the men, and not just wishing power away...I think its because they have been more affected by the oppression of power...William ol' boy, where is you Lu?"   
  
"Fascinating." Alex shook his head as William pointed Duncan to the Lu.   
  
"I fail to see how are being realistic is fascinating! Women have to live in less of a pretty world then men. Contrary to the popular belief." Willa said.   
  
"No, I mean that every time Duncan comes here he gets smashed and forgets where the Lu is." Alex shook his head.   
  
"Men can afford to be obsessed with power...because they always wield some." Dru sighed.   
  
"Maybe men can't afford not to be obsessed with power." Alex said.   
  
"You have the power, though. Someone always does, the trick in not eliminating it but, playing your hand well for everyone." Drusilla insisted.   
  
"Bloody...Fine Dru!...I'm a bad man, who is wretchedly power hungry." William blustered.   
  
"No you're not, my Love! Without power there would be nothing. No men and women together making babies. There would be no wars, but no songs either...If nothing has the power to grip your heart why write a song? Why fall in love? It's always a game, and its always not."   
  
"Okay, Love. I want to have my turn in this game. I demand you tell me why I can't let that ice-queen bint go, and allow us to judge if these reasons are fit...We'll vote..Share...Be all democratic." He smirked.   
  
Evil boy. He knew would win that way. He could argue her out of her love for Betty Finn. He would tell her the woman was only out to hurt her now, and with her friends their to agree, she'd have to fold.   
  
He didn't understand love grew on vines. Drusilla would be almost bald if the hair that had grown when Betty loved her broke off and flew away. Betty was the first to suggest that the visions she had in her fits were real, and that Drusilla was not mad, but a blessed, special girl.   
  
"Well,..." Dru began as she stood up with the cigarette between her fingers, and sucked on it for as long as she could. She twirled around to Willa and Alex's laughing.   
  
"You must have really big lungs." One of their guests joked in amazement.   
  
"Dru, enough now!" William was doing his stern pleading.   
  
She went to blow the smoke out and fainted. William grabbed her before she hit the ground. He picked her up.   
  
"Move your asses!" He bellowed to the slack-jaws on the couch.   
  
'  
  
"What happened to her? Is she all right?"   
  
"She did too much cocaine...I saw someone die like this when they did too much cocaine!" Harriet gasped.   
  
"She is not dying, you twit! She doesn't take coke! She just faints easy is all." William snapped. She didn't take coke she said she could feel it souring the baby's milk. It seemed like nonsense to him, but he learned not to question her intuition.   
  
Drusilla began whining in little gasps. He eyes were closed, but her eyelids were twitching.   
  
"You're hurt...Just kiss me..Don't worry...Son of a bitch...that whore set me free." She murmured. She then started whispering inaudible things and whimpering.   
  
"Maybe she should start taking cocaine...What on earth is ailing her? I've heard she really has vision like the girl in your book. Is-" Harriet prattled.   
  
"Shut-up!" William roared to Harriet. Everyone else did too.   
  
"She'll be fine. She is always fine...She's just in pain right now." He assured them as she moaned and her eyes rolled back.   
  
"William, I can stop this!" Willa said firmly.   
  
"No! Not like that!" He snapped "Not yet...Love." He said to Willa more softly.   
  
"Look at me, Drusilla." He pleaded. Drusilla opened her eyes.   
  
"William." She said seriously.   
  
"Yes, Love." He said trying to sound happy.   
  
"So, I guess I won that hand. I was bluffing. We do as I wish and keep Betty...You all thought I was having a vision? Honestly? Should we have a seance like all the society people do now?" She sat up with a sarcastic smiled at everyone. People laughed uncomfortably.   
  
They started to tell stories of times when they had fainted or had seem someone faint. They told stories about sances and memorization. Drusilla reset her hair. She could see everyone's words hanging in the air. The words they wanted to say like Harriet's. Drusilla had heard Harriet, and felt William. She had just heard and felt other things to. She thought that feeling more than one person's feelings was why it all hurt so much. But, now she thought perhaps it was capturing their lack of feeling that was painful. Lack of concern WAS fun. Everyone was wondering: Did Drusilla Drake just have a vision, or was she just playing with them like a bratty society girl?   
  
"Duncan, you should play the piano for us. Would you?" She asked sweetly. Everyone gathered around the piano.   
  
"If you keep eyeing me like I am you're favorite pet goose that you know you have to cook, you'll ruin my time." Drusilla whispered to William as the piano played.   
  
"Tell me what you want of me and I'll deliver it, Love." He said stretching his cheeks out so they would form a smile for her.   
  
"Be happy. Be happy with me in this life when you can." She told him. He caressed her cheek. She pushed him playfully towards the piano. Someone passed the bowl of coke. He snorted some and his head lightened he waited for it to come around again. He saw Harriet's eyes follow Drusilla as she was trying to slip out without being noticed.   
  
"Harriet." William smiled, "I'm afraid we have some unpleasantness to attend to..."   
  
Drusilla was doing what an ordinary well wife would do. She stood over the sink doing her dishes like a grown woman. She didn't pull her husband in and say "I spy with my little eye..."She wasn't a bit surprised when Harriet had left crying, but she kept her lips tight when people wondered what happened. She said nothing odd. Her guests left and she had said "good-bye"and looked them in the eye, but she didn't leave her dishes. The warm water was comforting, like oatmeal. That was not odd. The things she did not want to explain she would keep to herself rather than dress them up in veils. She had slipped tonight and today, and badly today with the talk of other Drusillas. There was probably a Drusilla that did not care about how she frightened people with her visions at all!   
  
"You hide, little girl." William said. Maybe he didn't feel other people's feelings, or see what was in their heads. But, he knew anyway, and without all the bothersome seeing, pain, and fainting. What he didn't have in her intuition he made up for in intelligence. His collar was messed. His shirt untucked. It suited him.   
  
"You're high as a bloody kite." She said amusingly annoyed.   
  
"Maybe, maybe not." He sighed smiling in the door frame.   
  
"The only thing worse than a lying man is one who acts coy." She turned back to her dish.   
  
"What did spy you with your little eye...sss?" He asked smugly as he approached her.   
  
"What?" She mumbled and scrubbed.   
  
"Now who is being coy?" He said. He wrapped his arms around her and pressed his hard thing on her ass. It made her sigh as she leaned back on him.   
  
"What do mean? A lady doesn't intrude on other people's business" She said mischievously.   
  
"I'll break your backside." He giggled as he swatted her ass. Then he was squeezing her breasts.   
  
"I don't know what you mean, good husband, by this 'spying'? But I feel something hard on my rear and it's not your hand." She tried to say stiffly but giggled.   
  
"What did you see? I am not one of your twit guests that can be charmed into thinking it was a party trick...I know there are strange things afoot, that go bump in the night...Even though the only thing that goes bump in the night in this house...is me." He demanded whispering in her ear. Kissing it. Licking it. There could be a chaste Drusilla somewhere.   
  
"So, you are the only one that can make the earth move? No one is an entity, we are all connected...even a wretched bastard can see that." She joked a little too sternly but mewled helplessly when he lightly bit her neck on the opposite side of where the bight scar lay.   
  
"I will not have my wife talking to me in such a manner! I am a man who works hard to maintain his power and his station, Mrs. Now I demand you tell me what you saw!...You have that blasted corset on...Not only do you faint, but you are out of fashion." He said with mocking anger as he traveled to her other ear. He lifted up her dress to the knee.   
  
"Sod you!" She cackled. She was just a naughty wife now, but not a mad one. He squeezed her tightly with the arm that didn't have her dress.   
  
"Mad ...Naughy...girl....Only you would wear a corset but no bloomers!" He laughed. She hadn't realized how hot she was until he lifted up her dress further and pinched her arse.   
  
"Shhh." She giggled after she was the one who had just screamed. She always made little cakes and everyone was always too drunk to eat. William stuck his finger in her cake that had been sitting lonely on the counter as he squeezed her crotch. She dropped her dish and leaned back on him entirely.   
  
"So tight lipped about this bloody vision... Open your mouth, anyway." He commanded as he held his finger to her mouth filled with raspberry filling.   
  
"William...I can't...Betty-" Her voice shook as she took his finger into her mouth. She was always too easily distracted by naughtiness. She was eager to give in because not giving in helped no one.   
  
"Better tell me what you saw then." He said wickedly as his wet finger swam inside her. She took his other hand and put it over her mouth. She had learned to enjoy losing her voice in a cupped hand long ago. Sod them all! They had no idea how much she wanted to scream. He took his hand off her mouth, so he could keep her from falling as she started shaking.   
  
"Tell me what you saw." He laughed "Or I'll make you scream." His hand swam faster. That was the delicious thing about threats. No threat could ever be repeated the same way. Sometimes the "same" threat that seemed horrific could seem heavenly depending upon whom was doing the threatening.   
  
"Aaaaa...All right!" She gasped. His hand stopped dead, but stayed inside of her.   
  
"I saw...I saw.. The second coming.. I was going to hell for wearing no bloomers, and you- you were there to punish me." She cackled. He grunted and nibbled on her ear, and began moving his hand again, quickly.   
  
"The second coming... Won't your beloved Nanny be pleased!" He laughed, " No matter..You could put out the fires of hell, with all this wetness you hold down here...Is this all for me?"   
  
"William, stop! You'll sully my name so much it'll go back to being saintly because only a daft overly obsequious woman would allow this." She laughed as if someone was tickling her.   
  
"No one is watching." He laughed as he began to untied the corset from under her dress. She sighed with surprising relief as he loosened the corset, but she didn't want to let it all go.   
  
"We should stop!...Someone is always watching." She told him.   
  
"Very well." He sighed. He removed his hand and kissed her ears and the back of her neck. She smiled, but felt heavy with her own thoughts once again.   
  
"William, you'll never know how much you save me everyday." She said gravely. That was an odd thing to say. She did not want to say odd yhings even to him. She had failed. She was glad she wasn't facing him.   
  
"I can't save you from the Second Coming though...I'm the sinner that'll bring it on." He laughed. She froze with what he said, until she felt him inside of her.   
  
"Oh.....God..Mmm Willll..." She purred as she leaned into him.   
  
"You said to stop..that other thing." He whispered out of breath as he moved slow and deep. "Did you spy me sneaking up on you from behind? Is that why you wore no bloomers?"   
  
"You're bloody awful." She gasped.   
  
"S'what they say...Do you like it?" He asked before he gripped her ear between his teeth.   
  
"Mmmm..Mmm-hmmm." She growled.   
  
"Oh God, your so so wet...you were just waiting to be taken." He moaned.   
  
"No, no...you're a...ahhh...bad man." She whispered. He put his hand over her mouth as she moaned, and she took her own hand to push his in more firmly.   
  
"Always such a good girl ." He whispered as her moans fell into his hand safely. She felt so light and tingly like a girl that just learned the trick of flying. He made all the bad thoughts happy thoughts, and she would float. She kept forgetting things, like she was standing and her legs needed to keep her that way. Luckily he'd catch her and laugh. He was not angry. He would never be angry at something like that. Others were enraged by her slips.   
  
"Couldn't have been that bad then?" He snickered pulling down her dress.   
  
"I managed to keep quiet this time... Flowers don't scream when they bloom. You always know how to make me opened my mouth though...It's too good to keep to closed with you. ...Lose lips will do dreadful things when were dead...But, note that for that bit I did keep quiet." She sighed, or caught her breath really as she turned to him.   
  
"There you are. It could only be you." She said touching his face, and kissing him.   
  
"No, I mean your vision couldn't 'a been that bad...If I could distract you so well...What do you mean it could only be me?" He said looking a bit stricken for a second.   
  
"Just that I couldn't see your face, Daddy...But, you have a way about you...You're not clean, you're dirty..Dirty is better..." She said into his shoulder. It had been a while since he was Daddy without the baby in sight. It made him kiss her for a good while, until she pulled away and frowned and then laughed.   
  
He thought that he had imagined the oddness that came over her. He knew she had a troubling vision, but she had responded so to his touch that he thought she was no longer haunted by it. She had pressed his hand to her mouth for so long so tight he feared her fainting again.   
  
But, the trouble of the vision was still with her, if it was so horrid he thought she would have told him by now. He caressed the side of her face. She was cold. Someone had told him, if she had too many visions they would drive her to madness or death. He hadn't believed them. The people who claimed she was already mad were simpletons that were merely jealous that they couldn't understand her. She sometimes would say mad things due to her exhaustion of visions, but the same could be said of so many women. Didn't other women get exhausted with all they had in their heads.   
  
"Was the vision about more wars coming again?" He asked.   
  
"Yes, and no." She said mischievously. Even he couldn't tell at times if she was really giddy or covering her sadness.   
  
"There will always be a war coming, Love. It's nasty and wretched, and I'm so sorry you have to see it, but you fought your war already... There is nothing you can do if mother England wants to fight hers with her sons' blood, you know... I am an old man of 29 now. They don't want me... And thank God for them not knowing about how well certain women can fight for once...our Bit will be spared."" He told her. He felt her shudder after he spoke.   
  
"Our Divya...It isn't fair! Firecrackers are how they discovered gun powder and war...They are a glorious explosion, and then they are gone. You would do anything for Divya, and you must understand- so would I... No one is spared...Not even Angelus himself...It was he I spied tonight...His slate is clean again...No matter how the gypsies dirty him up with guilt and nasties...He always manages to hold on to that slate, and wipe it clean!" She smiled sadly as she halfheartedly struggled to undo her corset from underneath her dress.   
  
"I hate these bloody things! Your Mum doesn't live here Drusilla! You don't have to wear this monstrosity of the upper-class!" He snapped about the corset seriously now, and turned her around roughly. He undid the first few latches she felt her shoulders relax as he rubbed them as kissed them.   
  
"It leaves marks! I should burn it after I take it off of you!" He said firmly in her ear. She could feel his Adam's apple against her neck moving with this drunken bravado.   
  
"Don't you dare...You- you're a mess! You could never have a clean slate!" She laughed as she closed her eyes as he undid more hooks kissing her the whole time.   
  
"You're right...I've never known how to look good...Never did things with that slow finesse of Angelus..Maybe I'll just cut it off the corset, then." He said as he stopped undoing the latches halfway. She would have felt disappointed if she wasn't distracted. He was holding a rather large blade with an ivory handle as he still held her tight against him.   
  
"Where did you get that..and why?" She asked angrily. Something about sharp things always brought her back to a clear head. Though the object did hold wonder. Her hand worked it's way down his leaned muscled arm to hold his hand that was holding the knife.   
  
"India. Where we got the swords in the bedroom..And why do you think?" He smiled at her.   
  
"It wouldn't help at all and you know it!...We knew this day would come with Angelus, William...There's no sense in becoming this way!" She shuddered.   
  
"It helped when a man in the East End tried to mug me. He decided not to after I convinced him." He grinned. He had enjoyed it!   
  
"...And would you mind sharing what we knew of our dear Angelus, because all I know is that you had a bloody vision of him! And.. that you insist on calling the dirtiest nancy bugger in the world-clean!" He wasn't grinning at all now.   
  
"You are the one that insisted Angelus would always be evil, even if he had a soul! But, never mind my vision! You hurt a man! A man who probably needed your money due to poverty!" She demanded.   
  
"He was well practiced at the art of pummeling people by the way he approached me. Believe me, I know that look in the eye. He didn't want to discuss the class system and neither did I...Besides, we can't get at the sods who create the real problems, can we?"   
  
"William! The man that wanted to live for beauty! " She criticized but she cooed because now he was grinding himself into her. She loved to feel him pressed into her. She lifted his hand with the knife in it. She laughed the handle was intricate and delicate pearl. It its end was sharp hard steel.   
  
"I still do Love, but I learned you must fight for it! I sleep with this in my sleeve every night. It's more fitting then a piece of wood now, and more comfortable...for me." He said slipping his hand under her slip to her behind and squeezing it. She moaned a little when his finger went in her from behind.   
  
"You were such a gentle boy and I ruined you...Even if a man has a soul I see his darkness, and I bring it out...I don't mean-" She stopped speaking as abruptly as he stopped touching her.   
  
"You mean you Saint Nancy Angelus has done wrong with his soul? Why couldn't you have a bloody vision that souls are bullocks? I should've killed him where he stood.." He spat,"... begging for forgiveness" but his voice softened when she reached into his pants.   
  
"Then you would be like him, Daddy...Punishing the innocent for their circumstance...Do you really want to kill the rats instead of the slumlord?" She had switched places with him. She stood behind, whispering questions in his ear. One hand playing with his naughties. She abruptly stopped as he did. Her other hand was holding his, but it was the hand she held that still had the knife.   
  
"That the way it works, Dru... The aristocrats and the bloody church create the catacombs and we have to defend ourselves from those that live in their sodding waste!" With her hand still on top of his with the knife he threw it into the door.   
  
"William!" She tried to yell, but a laugh escaped. She felt a chill run through her.   
  
"I've had enough of whatever this display is! The upper-class and the church, indeed! My family and those sweet nuns never hurt anyone!" She snapped and pushed away from him and looked at him angrily.   
  
"Yes, and look at what happened to them." He said softly as he grabbed her hands.   
  
"Real anarchy isn't sharing, parties, and cakes, Dru." He said gently. She opened her mouth to say something. He leaned into her neck and licked and kissed it. She moaned. He kissed her lips a few times. Then he walked away. He pulled the knife out the mouth of the carved angel above the door. The light wood that showed through looked like exposed flesh. It made her shudder and audibly wine.   
  
"What did you see of Angelus tonight? If he is coming 'round begging for more forgiveness this time he can find it at the end of a stake. " He demanded so softly.   
  
"He's lost his way, or found it." She sighed looking down and sounding calm, "He's lost his soul...We may not be troubled by it now, but it's troubling all the same. Divya will be saved by-" She brushed back his hair. He slightly pulled away.   
  
"THAT is what is so troubling to you? I hate to tell you, but, his soul was damned a thousand times over whether he has it or not...If there even is such a thing." He scowled.   
  
"You saw the man he was when he had it. He was remorseful and kind...He was sincere. I felt it. You always trust the other things I feel." She felt drained and numb now realizing that person was really gone. Another person Angelus murdered and would keep killing in different ways no doubt. Perhaps Angel was the only one alive that suffered as much by the hand of Angelus as Drusilla did.   
  
"Bloody Hell, Dru! Don't you dare show that bastard a lick of sympathy! I am a bloody fool for not going against you! I should have killed him that day when he asked it of you! If you have one more visions starring the sodding Wanker I'll scour the earth 'till I find his sorry ass and cut him to pieces before I turn him into dust not worthy of choking on!" His voice was low, but it shook with anger. He couldn't steady it now.   
  
"And they said your love poems were bad." She joked as he ground his teeth in a fury.   
  
"God Damn it Dru! I WON'T ALLOW sympathy for a monster who lost something he never had!" He said lowly, but threw her dish.   
  
"You still don't understand, Daddy...No sympathy for HIM...He's lost his soul. He's back to being the beast he was. He wants to kill again- to destroy. The other thing that goes bump in the night is back...for America as well as Europe now." She laughed as she saw her cracked plate. Men love to smash breakable things. She couldn't help it. Something about that made her escape in to schoolgirl giggles.   
  
"Was he coming for you?" William demanded with more than one realization coming into his glare.   
  
He pushed her against the counter top and gave her a look there was no word for. The tenacity of anger was equal to and capable of all the love that made it worth staying alive.   
  
People teach children that love and hate and pleasure and pain are opposites, and that opposites are nothing alike. It makes things easier. How do you explain to a child that cat and dog are opposites, but really have so much in common as they are both pets? Maybe that is why they taught algebra. In algebra the numbers that balanced the equation didn't have to be opposites. William had hold of her wrists.   
  
"Was he coming for you? In the vision did you see the Wanker coming for you, Drusilla?" He roared. And of course if you flip an equation around it still equals the same thing.   
  
"Oh William? The white knight talking backwards, isn't he!" Dru whispered in his ear viciously, "What he really means to ask would have Drusilla and Angelus switch places in that question. William ... is a mean Daddy."   
  
"Oh, no never...Dru doesn't like mean Daddies, does she?" He sang in angry sarcasim. He grabbed gently her face with one hand and held the knife at his side with the other.   
  
Of course, if you had a negative and a positive that were too much alike in algebra they balance out and the answer the two numbers were struggling for was annihilated. If the negative and positive were exactly the same, the answer could only be nothing. If the negative and positive were almost the same, the answer was whittled away to almost nothing. Poor thing. The numbers on either side claiming to be opposites destroyed the poor answer. Either side would claim the answer they sought drove them to it, or that the other number had...Or it was a combination of the two.   
  
"I was never very good at equations as a girl. I tried to make up stories for the numbers, and I forgot what side the answer went on. I got smacked by the teacher a lot for that." She smiled at her distraught husband. He opened his mouth to demand something. She could and would deliver sanity if someone was demanding it of her. When she married William she had been the only one of them that demanded it of herself. He didn't care about her sanity. He cared about her love.   
  
"Who do you give over for Dru?" He asked.   
  
"What?" She gasped. He was pushing up against the corset now as he kissed her. She loved the corsets. They held her together; reminded her of her coming of age. A grip that would never let her go and let all the pieces fly out. Always a party girl in a party dress. She just wanted to feel it holding her together. William's lips were almost everywhere accept where he knew Angelus had been. He was nothing if not a forgiving Daddy.   
  
"Who owns you, Dru? Which side?" He asked firmly. He had taken the party dress off, but the corset remained. He sat her up on the counter as she breathed heavily. She loved that she wasn't the only one that needed to breath heavily. When she rapped his legs around him he was warm. His hand road up between her legs.   
  
"If there is always power and it can't be destroyed, who do you give yours over to?" He asked in her ear as she let out a shaky breath. His fingers were teasing her outside.   
  
"Daddy." She pleaded like she had been bad, but she was so so happy.   
  
"What? You want to talk about sharing again, If we ask nicely. Maybe the sodding government and the church will share their cake as easily as you do!" He mocked and slapped her between her legs. She let out a yelp and laughed. He allowed her to kiss him as his fingers swam inside her gently now to continue the tingle of the slap.   
  
"Do you want to share yourself? Share your bloody power? Do you want to split yourself up between this scandalous life and a proper one with the church, or with the bloody aristocrats? The ones who saved you from all your misery and taught you how to turn your vision into a sins or bloody party tricks." He slapped her pussy again. She moaned after she let out a yelp.   
  
"Maybe you can be the cake..Dru? And one will want a piece here...And here...And here...And you will just let them all have it, won't you?" He demanded as he bit her lightly on the neck, then the thigh then the clit. She screamed more then moaned she sounded like a girl who had her arm torn off, but she felt nothing like her. But, her arm did move and knock a glass to the ground. She was glad he didn't notice she was crying because she didn't want him to stop.   
  
"Won't you, wicked plum...?" He was laughing with pride at her coming so.   
  
"Answer Daddy!"   
  
She shook her head. She moaned deeply and shook as he thrust two fingers inside of her. "Well, then you won't be needing the underclothes society bitch who gives herself away, will you then?" He demanded. There was a ripping sound and he whole body felt free and breathing. He HAD cut the corset off in one smooth motion like he had gutted a fish. She gasped as he picked her up.   
  
"Who do you think you share yourself with, Dru?...Does the church still own you? Does you mum? Do they bind you up with all the ways to behave like a corset? Do you really believe you were sharing with them?" He demanded as he sat her on his lap where Alex had claimed he was under her thrall.   
  
"No." She said as she turned to straddled him. She kissed him hard. Good strong boy. He could take on the anger for her about her tyrant coming back to life. She hadn't the energy.   
  
"So, if there is no sharing who do you give yourself to? Who owns you?" He said lowly as he teased her with the tip of himself.   
  
"No one." She answered. Whining because she wanted him inside of her, and he held her hips hostage there and wouldn't budge   
  
"Wrong. That question is a tricky one...Want another guess?" He asked.   
  
"William, please." She begged.   
  
"Who, Dru?" He demanded. She was trembling. She remembered bigger hands on her demanding answers, and she would search for the right answer terrified. She would say anything those all encompassing hands wanted in order for them to stop touching her at first. Things change. Now she would say anything to keep being touched by William. She learned to love lies with the other pair of hands, but she never had to before with William.   
  
"Me...you give yourself to me." He said as he entered her hard. She cried out. Too loud. She never reached such intense pleasure so suddenly. She leaned into to be kissed and held. He might push her when he felt pushed, but he always pulled her back to him. He wrapped his fingers in her hair.   
  
"Right...All to me." He grunted with a laugh as she came again.   
  
"Do I have you, Dru?" He grunted.   
  
"Yes.Yes.Yes!" She moaned. She felt like all the daisies in the world were inside of her slowly blooming.   
  
"Do you love me? Do you?" He was shaking now. Soon all the daisies would spill out of her in full bloom. They would live.   
  
She leaned her neck into him right where she had her bight scars, so he had to kiss them. He put one hand on her throat and pushed her gently away. But, his other hand was in her hair and pulled it roughly back right before the daisies were to spill out.   
  
"You're not to wear corsets anymore. Nothing is to leaves marks on you but me ... from now on." He whispered and thrust fiercely.   
  
"Let me go!" She moaned and pushed off of him, which made her fall on the floor. The minute she hit the floor he squirt onto his pants.   
  
She glared at him as she held the ripped corset.   
  
"What's wrong, pet? Did I ruined your favorite torture device." He sighed a bit out of breath.   
  
"You betray your party! Anarchists don't believe in owning property." She said coolly as she rose and went to the kitchen to put her dress back on corsetless.   
  
"I was playing the game with you, Love...sorry." He mumbled buttoning his shirt crocked. She hadn't remembered him taking it off, but she remembered leaning against his chest.   
  
She felt an empty giggle escape her, but then looked livid. This is why people said she was mad. "I remember someone else that used to play with me like that!"   
  
"Oh really! Is that so? And did you come for him so many times that his cock drowned in you too?" He snarled. She smacked him so hard that his whole face turned with her hand. Then she did it again. They stood there fiercely listening to each other breath, waiting for someone to fold. That's when Drusilla heard a voice.   
  
"La,La,mmm,Ba."   
  
"Divya! Oh firecracker, has gotten free of her crib. I suppose no cage could hold you for long." She laughed so sadly as she picked the baby up who was at her feet.   
  
"That Finn woman wasn't watch-" William began.   
  
"Umm. Hello neighboors....or landlords I should say...Sorry for barging in, but I wanted to give this to you...To take away the headaches from the visions...I mean fainting.. the fainting." Willa said meekly.   
  
"Oh, Willa. You are a creature of light, but I really don't want you to waist your power on me "Drusilla smiled as William looked at his feet sheepishly. She took the bag of herbs the girl presented, and hugged her with her free arm.   
  
"I don't have any power to waist I'm afraid." Willa sighed.   
  
"The trouble is we all do...Don't we, William?" She snipped and she began to cry real tears, not just a whine or a shudder.   
  
"I-I'm sorry, baby...I'm sorry...Drusilla..." William cried and went to touch her.   
  
"LET ME BE! Go off with your blade...I only give myself to my daughter for feeding." She yelled and cried. It was an odd sound. She never yelled. He sucked in his breath and obeyed her.   
  
"I think I know why I laugh madly instead of crying, Willa. The queen always trumps with tears, but no one really wins. Did you see how my tears beat him down?" She asked as Willa hugged her.   
  
"I-I think both of you are taking this power debate much too far." Willa said.   
  
"Indeed." Drusilla laughed.   
  
"Tell me what happened! Did I do something? Should I not have brought this here? I know William doesn't like magic..it's just... What can I do?...Drusilla, I haven't seen the two of you this way since...Oh! Oh no! Is it- he back?" Willa prattled squeezing Dru's hand. Drusilla only nodded.   
  
"I can call my friend, my friend in San Francisco...The potenial I spoke of." Willa shuddered.   
  
"She won't know where Angelus is now...She can't fight him, the poor girl isn't chosen yet. Angelus will want to tie up the lose ends from where they started...He will be saving her for last." Drusilla told her.   
  
"Who?...Drusilla I don't understand!"  
  
"You aren't supposed to...I am not supposed to either, but I'm wicked... and I do...But, don't worry. You will be the savior of us all."   
  
"Me? No, I am just a girl..a...a glorified chemist! We have to go to the counsel! They can get the slayer in Hong Kong!"   
  
"And tell them what, Pet? That Angelus's half-mad only living whore had a vision that he lost his soul...That she doesn't know where he is, but believes he is storming from America to Romania to begin his vengeance at the beginning...The counsel is very logical, so- so we will have to explain logically...That I know him like no other. Better than your friend who loved his human side. Better than his dead mother whore. Those women are on the sides, one in the man, the other in the monster... and I am in the middle...They would give anything to know him like I do...and I would give anything to not know him at all...but then I wouldn't have my presents...None of you." Drusilla smiled with tears in her eyes. Then looked down at her daughter and began to really cry again.   
  
"Oh, Dru...I'm frightened for you! There has to be something I CAN do! A protection spell! Something!" Willa demanded.   
  
"My dear fairy-girl. No one can do anything now...I'll only ask you to take on burdens when you must. For now go back to Alex. Contact your friend in America, but not to come here! She needs you more than I do now."   
  
Drusilla woke up from her dreams but was not frightened. She could see things. She was in a state of twilight where it all made sense and fit in a lovely swirl of colors. When she became more awake all those colors would be come puzzle pieces with round and sharp edges she didn't have the time or skill to put together.   
  
"I was having the most wonderful dream." She cooed to him. She could feel eyes on her. "You were squeezing my life back down into me because it wanted to jump out and get sucked into hell. You saved me. You always save me and others even when you aren't supposed to." His arms totally surrounded her from behind. She liked being small. She leaned back into his reuniting and forgiving arms. He began kissing her bight scar. His mouth was directly on it. Caressing so gently, then circling it with his tongue. Her mouth opened and she moaned violently, hers eyes rolled back in her head but she saw nothing.   
  
"I love you, William... I've always loved you." She smiled wide. Then, she froze. Cold. Numbing cold.   
  
"It ain't your boy, Baby. It's your savior." Angelus whispered in her ear.   
  
Little bit was screaming an angry roar of a cry. William understood his baby. He had been crying like that himself, while his wife fed her downstairs. What could possibly make him feel so much anguish? That didn't matter now. Poor little bit was howling. The view from behind his eyelids glowed orange with the bedroom light. It bore into his head with his daughter's crying. He tried to lift his head up and open his eyes and failed. Cocaine and its bloody crashes! He should quit it all together as she did. He didn't need the courage it provided in order to do what he wanted now.   
  
"Div... Divya." He groaned empathetically with the screaming baby.   
  
"Is she not taking the breast, Love?" He asked half opening his eyes. He saw the side of his wife looking all too bright. The side of her breast exposed to him. Her arm. Her face. So white. So full of perfect slopes. Her eyes were down cast. She had been angry with him for something. Was she still? He remembered, she had accused him of being too rough. This happened at times. She asks him too pull and sometimes he loses his grip and the band snaps back and hits her. Sometimes it seems the action she loved most was he kissing better his mistake, but other times she was angry before he even got the chance. It all depended on what she remembered or what she sensed about people other than him. But, only he could make her feel better or good or the feeling she had no word for. He reached out to her. She instantly grabbed his hand. She was shaking. He then remembered he had touched her in an angry way. He broke a dish too. Why the hell would he do that?   
  
"Baby... I'm sorry. I'm a horrible, pathetic, man. Tell me you could never be afraid of me." He begged as tears blurred his eyes more. He laid his head in her lap, and reached out across the wrinkly plane of her gown. She didn't push him away. She couldn't be frightened of him if she was going to let him comfort his angry bit.   
  
"Love, where's the-"   
  
"You're a horrible pathetic excuse for a man... and I could never ever be the slightest bit afraid of you." The Irish voice said with glee. Angelus laughed as William's body shot up.   
  
"Oh, and she's not offering the breast to this wailing cursed thing...but to me...for the life of this...thing." He sighed. Angelus literally overshadowed Drusilla. He was holding the angry baby too carelessly in his arm. William dashed back behind the bed, and then came back to his wife's side.   
  
"Shakespeare...looking for these." He said holding William's spectacles, and then crushing them in his hand. "I didn't like the way you ended my story, so I came to change it. Oh, shit...Now you can't write this down...God, I get so ahead of myself.." He mock sighed not keeping the laughter out of his voice.   
  
"I am sorry...I am so so sorry. I should always answer whatever you ask of me..I did not see this. I saw him in America with--Take Divya. Raise her prepared to face him...Kill me-" Drusilla clung to William and sobbed and flinched when Angelus shouted.   
  
"Shut-up! THERE ARE RULES HERE NOW! You know I can't understand you when you sob! I know you are not used to rules and order anymore, so I'll give you a chance. The first rule is: Follow all the rules, or you will find yourself out of daughters. The second rule is silence!...Ah, silence...Good. I bet it's rarely heard around here." He smiled as he now held Divya more carefully. She stopped crying but still fussed.   
  
"I think I have some harried fathers break the first rule on purpose." He giggled "But, you seem to be a man who can afford to care for a parasite, as you are living off MY story yourself." He growled now. The looming man sighed. William thought he looked like an ape dressed in the best of brooks brothers. How did he find clothes big enough to fit him?   
  
William gently pushed back his wife so he could close her dress. His jaw was clenched until he gave Drusilla a small smile. After he made sure it was buttoned straight.   
  
"I liked your old dolls better, they were quiet and didn't smell of piss." Angelus told Drusilla. William now looked at him fully for the first time. He did not look away, but glared with all the stinging of the words he could not say. Angelus whistled and laughed to Divya who he seemed to hold lovingly now. The baby began to cry again.   
  
"Uh...oh! Someone's breaking the rule... Just like your Ma...Your own worst enemy." He placed his hand on top of the babies head.   
  
"Angelus, please!" Drusilla put her hand on the monsters hand and the other on the baby.   
  
"Are YOU breaking the rule Drusilla? Of course, you are the harried one who wants to be rid of this brat. Thank God I am here to free you of this life long parasite!" He snarled.   
  
It was then Angelus changed his face into vampire face. William wondered what he had been waiting for. Then he realized Angelus wanted to appear calm and cavalier. It was his style, and his style was the only thing he cared for. If he used his vampire face, it would be admitting that he was angered or intimidated. Angelus only turned now to his vampire face so he could kill the baby, but he would make sure his style wasn't cramped.   
  
"Coward!" William barked.   
  
"Excuse me, I think I heard a comment from the balcony." Angelus scowled. Drusilla was still trying to grab the baby from Angelus.   
  
"That's the first thing you're going to do to make up for the time you were the weeping sap I saw last time! You're going to snap the neck of the most helpless one here! You disappoint. In my mind you were much more of an artist...I mean, this is it?...You lurk in shadows and sneak in on us in our sleep... I would think after losing yourself you'd want to make a bigger come back."   
  
"Just you wait boy." He smiled.   
  
"That bitch must have left you again and you have no woman to answer to. I wonder how different you are from the last time I saw you...All weak and practically pleading to die at the hands of a woman...Too weak to do it yourself, leaving all the real work to the women as usual." He smiled.   
  
"That wasn't me...It was that Shiite spell that the whore of a girl released me from." Angelus roared turning into vampire face again. Angelus's eyes were only focused on William now sneering, even though Dru had her hands on Divya.   
  
"'Oh Drusilla, you have no idea how much blood stains my hands. But the worst of it is what I did to you. My only peace is that you're happy now. Perhaps, if you killed me now there would be some justice..Boo-hoo.'" William mocked Angelus with a smile. The baby had stopped crying as if she wanted her Daddy to have quiet. William's eyes were twinkled as he smirked with sarcasm. He held tight to that look. He almost lost it when Dru let out a whimper. She knew. He couldn't look at her because if he did the bastrad would know too. He wanted too look at her so badly. Just one last time.   
  
Angelus wordlessly pushed Drusilla down and let go of Divya. William could hear her thud on the wood and yelp. She must have had hold of the baby because he could hear his daughter singing now. William wished he could understand baby songs. She was babbling about a tangential thing because she was happy and unaware.   
  
"I never noticed how pretty you were...Dru likes her pretty small things...Oops! Daddy's gone and broke another dolly." He lifted William by the shirt and walked him into the wall. William heard a crack and realized it was the wall as it met his head.   
  
"Please! Without my cup I can't go to the tea party." William heard his wife cry, as he slid down the wall like food thrown there by his daughter.   
  
"You were not so quick to beg when I snapped the last one...But, you didn't really care for him all that much...Though maybe you cared for him more than this one, because you tried harder to save the other one by running off to the convent...too bad that didn't work out for all parties involved...accept you. You seem to have a good chunk of money, is that from all the dead relatives? Or is it from having your pretty man write about me? When will you realize it all comes back to me, Lover?" Angelus snickered.   
  
"We were never lovers! You drove me mad and it made me do awful things only to survive. Survive in the dirt with the worm...See the weeds." She cried.   
  
"Oh C'mon, Dru. It wasn't as though you were like me...You had a soul..You had a choice not to enjoy it, not to love me. I gave you everything you wanted, and that was all you cared about...A loving family, dresses, dollies, and more damn dresses...And finally Dru was so rewarded for her visions...The very reason Mummy hated you was why I loved you, and there was no more bothersome moderation or chastity to worry about...Kind of like your shit life now, but you have all these people to worry about now...You never had to worry for me Dru...It is I who took care of you always, no?...And now you have this boy and that screaming banshee' there. You had no responsibility, no grief, you have an abundance of it now, don't you? You should not fight fate. God's plan has you being evil...How many times must I say it? It all leads back to me...Lover." He stood over her as she sat on the floor gripping the fussy Divya.   
  
When William had seen his first vampire it was merely confusing. You never mentioned Angelus was disfigured. What was terrifying was the fact that Angelus was indeed an artist, and a good one. An artist creating a reality his wife could fall into as his slave. The fact that he had the strength of ten men was hampering as well.   
  
"We are all connected above and below the earth...The path of the cards." She cried. She sounded so frightened with that statement because she was being resculpted by him again. As the vampire laughed, it occurred to William the bastard wasn't really interested in what her madness was like, or figuring out the meaning of what she said. For all his obsession, he was only interested in his own power to make her go mad, and how the visions served him.   
  
William coughed up blood.   
  
"Sheeait! This boy's got moxy! It would have been so clean if I had taken him out with one punch and brought you back to the girl you were."   
  
"My poor king...My broken cup." She cried but then laughed. "He had fish in his tummy...He was effulgent. Do you see his light?" It made William cry a little to call her back to this awful place.   
  
"Dru, the queen of cup's princess needs to see her birthday party, Love." William begged.   
  
"Yes...Yes...It's not her last party is it? Not even her first. She has more than twenty." Drusilla smiled.   
  
"She will have more than one hundred, and so will you." William said.   
  
"So, my suspicions are correct. You actually understand my little mad girl that I worked so very hard on... I was trying to ruin her for other men...But, I suppose I did ruin her for a real man..Still, you shouldn't mess with another man's work... These are nice...Korans late 18th century...Did my story by these?" He smiled taking the swords off the wall turning to William again.   
  
"Its not you bloody story. The vampire in it was scary, not a lay about brought to life by a heartless dead whore." William laughed. It was bitter and slow. He only stopped for a moment when the sword landed in the wall by his head. It was so close it stabbed his hair to the wall. He looked over and saw and laughed more loudly.   
  
"That...was for you mouth.....Psst..I missed on purpose...I been waiting years for this. You know how I am when I've been waiting...I make the most of it...Remember your real Daddy, Dru? "   
  
"What are you talking about? Mr. Drake died of natural causes!" William spat before Angelus could turn to see Drusilla.   
  
"Ah, yes!" Angelus said glaring at William "Pretty boy sucked a lot of Scotland Yard cock to make it look like that...You are such the vandal of fine work...So, you will be one of my finest pieces I'll make for your wife. A poetic end for a poet...I love it!" Angelus said as he took the sword out of the wall and caressed William's face with it. When William exhaled he could feel the blade sting a little.   
  
"There's nothing you can try to destroy that I can't create into something better, Angelus...Look at the book...It is far more interesting than you." William goaded. Angelus smiled.   
  
"No need to duck." He said and then threw the second blade above William's head.   
  
"Hmmm...No, even If we gave you extra points for being a weak human...I'd still think I'm better at throwing blades wouldn't you say?" Angelus asked as William made sure to keep eye contact with him.   
  
"It was a nice shot, though..right in the Angel's mouth." Angelus now winked at William who opened his bloody mouth in shock.   
  
"Nice work with the other stuff too by the way...Three times, above average performance for a man your age. Smackin' it in the middle of the kitchen-classy touch." He whistled his amusement growing.   
  
"And the second act was great with all that manly vigilante crap. I was on the edge of my seat...but... The finish was a big disappointment. It needed... to be more dramatic. The overture can be her favorite part, but Dru needs a big finale to be satisfied. Maybe if the redhead walked in a wee bit sooner.. I understand need for the cocaine...." He sighed and giggled.   
  
"I mean what mere human man can keep up with the sexual appetite I unleashed in my baby and yes she drowned my cock over and over...And she never once pulled away as she did from you when I laid down the law. She always told her Daddy how she loved him." He sang sarcastically. William spit a tooth and surprisingly large amount of blood and siliva into Angelus's face. Angelus wiped the blood onto his hand and licked it.   
  
"You are so adorable... So much more moxy then last time I saw you, who knows what you could have become." He said.   
  
"The only reason your are alive is because my wife wanted you that way, and she convinced me death was too good for you. You needed the suffering only immortal damnation could bring, and not being a man of faith, I was sure that you would get it if you stayed in this world." William spat.   
  
"I am sure that is what she told you her reason was for not killing me. Well, we know who wears the pants here... But, Dru doesn't like wearing pants, do you Lovey? Daddy, will let you where all the corsets you want." Angelus called to Drusilla. William smiled. Angelus turned around to find that Drusilla wasn't there.   
  
"WHERE IS SHE?" Angelus demanded punching William in the stomach.   
  
"WHERE?" He demanded in vampire face again dragging William up by the hair.   
  
"I've been so taken with you, I hadn't noticed that she left." William smirked.   
  
"If she's in this house I'll find her! I'm familiar with all the places one can hide in this hole." He grumbled.   
  
"How did you get into my bloody house?" William demanded suddenly realizing that Angelus's arrival violated known laws. But, everything glorious and horrid seemed to do so.   
  
He growled and hit William's head against the wall, but then he composed himself. He shook his head and his smirk let out a little laugh.   
  
"I've always been here! She is mine! I made her! After me, instead of being an old maid she made your pansy ass stand up and fight! Your ass is mine! This house is mine!" Angelus growled as he hit William. William knew Angelus was holding back to keep him conscious. Angelus did not like to do things quickly as he said. His vanity would allow his wife and daughter to be safe.   
  
"Paths! Paths! too many paths! I could have made his face like iron, and he would be the one of us to still have a heart." Drusilla said shrilly, as she walked into the room. There were blood droppings on the shoulders of her nightgown   
  
"Dru?" William whispered dazed.   
  
"Ah! Look whose back! Just in time! Daddy, almost made another boo-boo. I was going to kill him without you here. See...I realized...I made a mistake with you, dearie. I only killed the men in your life...Well, if you don't count all the nuns, but who counts nuns? They're like after dinner mints... Anyway, with all the men gone you sure clung to Daddy...But, then I thought: Damn it! It woulda been better if I killed all the women too...We can count your boy here as the second fallen woman...He's pretty and he cries a lot." Angelus gasped in excitement.   
  
"My second Mummy. She breathed all frost and I just thought it was because she was being cold to me." She said slowly. She sat on the bed and drew her knees up the her chest.   
  
"That's nice, Honey, but that was very naughty running off. You know you have to be punished." Angelus said softly.   
  
"Good intentions have a paved road of their own." She said softly and started rocking back and forth.   
  
"Sorry, baby but.." Angelus sighed as he punched William in the face again."You made it this way...Maybe you really want your boy hurt, hmmm? I mean he was quiet nasty to you... But, you like that."   
  
"She falls from the fist, but is saved by it. She falls from the fist, but is saved by it. She falls from the fist, but is saved by it." Drusilla repeated into her lap.   
  
"Dru...Go." William choked. Her expression was unreadable   
  
"The queen must be at her own tea party... If she's not her servants get so very hurt." She cried and then giggled, and slid to the floor like he had when Angelus slammed his head into the wall.   
  
"Drusilla, I know you can hear me! Now go!" William commanded swallowing back blood. Angelus let go of William who fell to the ground.   
  
"I don't think that she will be leaving, Lad. Even if she was sane enough to go, she knows I'd find her. She would let me come." He picked Drusilla up from the floor.   
  
"Snake in the woodshed."She laughed as he threw her on the bed.   
  
"I'll bet you knew I was coming here before I did...Speaking of my coming, too bad hubbie will be too far gone to see it. I do get ahead of myself." He smiled. Then he screamed as his face smoked. on one side.   
  
"I wouldn't worry about it. I'm quiet awake." William heaved a painful breath as Angelus backed away from the cross on his face.   
  
"Poor, Poor, Daddy. He hates to rely on the classics for his art. The crucifix just works so well." Drusilla   
  
"Now, honey, you know that is the only way I can get you to come out and play." Angelus said in a soft chaste tone, but William could see he was in pain.   
  
"She wasn't talking to you, you mother fucking corpse!" William roared. What would it take to scar him permanently before he died?   
  
"He's spry, pretty smart and he has a filthy mouth...Too bad we have to rip him to pieces, for confusing you... We'll do it nice and slow... Remember you Mother superior, Dru? The finger nails I pulled out...by the end I dunno who was more crazier... You or her... You put all of her nails in a jar and keep them as pets before we went to France." The vampire smiled rubbing the cross burn on his face.   
  
"They stopped scampering and singing. They died. I thought they were happy in the little house I made. I put holes in the top so they would have air. I didn't mean to hurt them! You kill all my Mummies!" She was staring at her own fingernails and crying.   
  
"Drusilla leave here now!" William roared.   
  
"That's right, I do... It'll be just you and me... That Darla-she had her good points, but she was such a jealous lass... Everything had to be her way or she'd hound me and hound me... But now we are both free of our nagging women Dru whether they fled or were crucified." Angelus laughed. Clever, and William was to be the second fallen woman, second to the Mother superior. But, didn't Angelus say he didn't count the nuns? He didn't counts the nuns!   
  
"The tower of babble has fallen on the priestess." Drusilla laughed madly.   
  
"What did you do? Fucking bastard! What did you bloody do? Dru where is Divya?" William demanded crossing between panic and rage. Dru had left with the baby. He had seen it. The baby was going to live to be a woman. Dru had seen it. William was holding the cross like a burning stick as far away from himself and as close to the vampire as possible.   
  
"Tell yer boy what Daddy did in a little bit of a clearer way." The vampire smiled. William swore to himself that he saw Drusilla leave with the baby, as he began to doubt it. How could a man fight if he couldn't trust his own eyes?   
  
"The Angel... He came for my nursemaid. She died like the only man she ever really loved...Only her cross was drawn in her own blood by the Angel...of death. Dru brings the Angel to everyone she loves. Dru is a special girl...Aren't I Daddy? Am I still special and good?" Drusilla pleaded as her voice broke. She wasn't looking at either Angelus or William, but at the ceiling.   
  
"You are to me, baby... Maybe you aren't good for the people with morals, but you are good for me." Angelus said gently as he kissed the top of her head. She took his hand. She took the bastard's hand.   
  
"Help me...You're the only one with the power to stop it. Betty was right I should not have led this life...She thought it was dangerous for me, but she is the one who went cold for it...That's not fair." Drusilla whispered.   
  
"Oh God!" William yelped in realization. He had forgotten that the nanny even existed.   
  
"Have you found the Lord, William?" Angelus asked smugly. "The old woman would be happy to know. It's amazing how easy it is to get invited into a house when you say you have found the Lord...And it's amazing what a house full of drunken fornicating heathens don't hear when they are practicing their wicked ways. All the noises of sin can hide the noises of pain and death."   
  
"Only for so long my Angel. Tick, Tock, dickery-dock the mouse runs up the clock." Drusilla laughed. William didn't want give himself false help by demanding she leave.   
  
"I'll cut your sack off and stuff it down your throat!" William said with his jaw set stepping towards Angelus, who now was only looking at Drusilla with giddiness.   
  
"Oh, now there's an idea'r worth havin' that woulda spiced up the book ya wrote. But, why don't ya leave the actual doing to me, boy." Angelus smiled and stepped towards William deliberately slow.   
  
"Oh, do come at me again." William's voice road in waves of anger. He really wanted the vampire to come at him while he held the cross. What did he have to lose now as his wife held the killers hand? Divya. He had Divya. He was not a seer, but he knew where his wife went with her. She was such a kind girl to rent that space to Alex and Willa for nothing.   
  
"Why don't you come at me?" Angelus said and began laughing. "What we have here, Laddie, is a showdown... That's what the yanks call it in the West... It's when the two sides fin-"   
  
"I know what a bloody showdown is, idiot Mick!"   
  
"Really, I'm impressed there be many a' things ya just can't learn from books." Angelus said purposely thickening his accent. "But, you love those Yanks...Can't blame you. They have lose morals...If Drusilla really wanted to fend me off she should have married that brick layer yank that little red headed mouse snagged. Then she could have a naughty thing with the slayer, while he ran about with ladies as well. You two are so taken with them...Maybe Drusilla and I will pay 'em a visit. You think they might know where your little Deirdre is? ...Oh, Lad you're shaking did I say something?"   
  
"Her name is Divya...It is a Hindu name meaning divine brilliance...She'll always be divine, even before she is chosen, and she will end in brilliance." Drusilla said to Angelus as if they had been casually conversing. Her tone and words made him drop the cross and laugh madly himself. Bitch.   
  
"Ah my Drusilla! She never stops being cute. You still have a love for those backward brown people? We'll feast on them." Angelus smiled. She looked at him. Her expression unreadable.   
  
"Is this it, Drusilla? Are you not even going to try to fight him? Are you just going to let you mind cave? Have the past three years meant nothing to you that's worth fighting for?" William yelled as snot ran down his nose. Drusilla responded by plugging her ears and whining.   
  
"The tides will turn again quickly, and I don't know whether to push or pull. So, I stand. Stand in the sand...Stand in the sand. Stand in the sand." She was rocking with her eyes closed.   
  
"I guess your little domestic life is just too boring for her." Angelus laughed.   
  
"Look at me, Drusilla! You're going to let him kill our girl!" William demanded.   
  
"Showdown, Daddy...Lay all the cards down...Get the one up you sleeve and throw it down hard, and then we'll go." Drusilla smiled eerily at William.   
  
"Yes, Baby. I am losing interest in your toy..." Angel began to sigh as he moved towards William. At that moment William threw down his knife into Angelus foot.   
  
The vampire merely grunted in pain. William kept hitting Angelus and keeping his hands away from the knife with the cross. William then hammered the knife further into Angelus's foot and the floor.   
  
William grunted. He fell back on the floor when Angelus hit him again. He had fists like crowbars. William knew he couldn't take another.   
  
"You will die so very slow, at your wife and my lover's mercy." Angelus whispered with a painful grin as he bent down to pull out the knife.   
  
"Yes, yes...You're not the first bloke to have shagged another man's wife before he had her you know, but it's over." William smirked with false bravado. Suddenly the Vampire yelped again. William had no idea why. It actually made him uneasy. William may have been out of control, but he always excepted to understand what was happening.   
  
"You always liked swords, Daddy...So smart. They are korans! I pretended they were for decoration, but they are really for Divya...One day. These swords say all kinds of things... Happy, happy, things, and why not they live in such a happy home." Drusilla chirped as she held one sword and looked at the tip until she went cross-eyed. The other she had already stuck in Angelus's foot.   
  
"OoooH! Do you fancy yourself a slayer now, Darlin'? I think some sanity is required for the job. Besides, they don't fuck vampires...Not after you torture them anyway. " Angelus spat and sneered at Drusilla now, as if she were William's stand in. This made Drusilla pout.   
  
"I am just like any other prey to you." She whispered sadly.   
  
"No. No. You are to be my first girl. My only girl. Forever." He smiled. He reached out and held the side of her face. She closed her eyes. Forever. Her life would stop spinning. She wouldn't mourn what was, and what's to come. It would all just seem so very funny. Dead people would be like dollies and candy. Naughty boy nailed Dru's dolly to the wall, and painted a cross with red cherry candy. It must be so sweet to have your feet nailed to the floor with blades, and to know that you will heal by tomorrow as if nothing had happened. He grabbed the other side of her face.   
  
"Will you break my neck now, like you did to those pretty skinned girls? They never knew anything of horror. They just knew the release." She sighed.   
  
"I'd never hurt you, Did I ever hurt you really? Did I ever leave a bruise on you that wasn't from mutual pleasure?" He smiled. "We've been apart for too long. You're bound to get confused without me. But, I know you were always thinking of me... You had your boy write a book about me for God's sake, and even though he was the one who got you in the end of the story, I'm the one who gets you in life." He ran his hands down her face. She stepped out of his reach.   
  
"Drusilla..." William pleaded. He had tears of blood.   
  
"So much pain...he has. So much pain from love. It's so trying to feel the pain for two...To see all the places nasty Dru cracks the cup. Even if he was like you, all that would motivate him would be his still bruised red heart...It hurts." She said shrilly. As she grabbed William's hand. He barley squeezed back. He looked at her with those eyes all swollen like a black goldfish. She had a black goldfish. She called it Oxy short for "oxymoron". He would come to the top of the bowl when he saw her.   
  
"Why don't you put him out of his misery?" Angelus suggested as he grunted to take the knife out of his foot. Drusilla smiled at the sword as she moved it.   
  
"BITCH!" Angelus growled in vampire face. He was holding his shoulder.   
  
"The sword told me you hurt a slayer there." Drusilla smiled as Angelus leaned back but then forward as his feet were still stabbed to the floor.   
  
"Break a girls heart and she'll be yours forever. You always knew what would speak to my heart. I want to say something to yours!" Drusilla closed her eyes and winced as she felt the sword go through his chest. She always loved to carve the jack-o-lantern on Halloween. She never let her sisters have a turn.   
  
"Dru! Look at me, God damn it!" Angelus grumbled. She was holding the sword to his throat.   
  
"You DON'T want to kill me, Drusilla." He said calmly with a laugh. The only way to laugh as your heart was bleeding all over your clothes and the floor is to be dead.   
  
"You want to kill HIM and come with me, Dru. I know you saw me coming and you did NOTHING to stop me. Give up this doomed life, and you will no longer be miserable." Angelus pleaded now.   
  
"Drusilla please end this for us... For you." William was weary.   
  
"You are like the tides and the moon! Both of you!...This is only a sword not a pen...This part is not for us to create. None of us hold power with this." She yelled. Angelus bent down and grabbed the blades from his feet with a grunt.   
  
"Drop them!" William said threw gritted teeth holding the cross an inch from the vampires face as he was still bent down holding the blades.   
  
"The boy's got his third wind." Angelus smirked, but he also was panting weakly. He dropped the knife and the sword by emphatically letting them go.   
  
"You can leave a trail of you own blood now. Out the window backward. Let me see your hands." Drusilla demanded as she pointed the sword at Angelus's throat.   
  
"You... Always loved my hands." He panted and smiled. She stuck him under the chin.   
  
"Your right. I have to say goodnight. I don't want it to be like this for us, honey. I want my taking of you to be clean, like before..Though... You always did like it a little rough...Just wait until I sire you." He giggled. She felt his Adams apple move under the blade. Then he was gone. Jumped out the window like a broken hearted lover. She almost expected to see his body smashed on the sidewalk, but he was nowhere.   
  
"What the bloody hell are you doing here?" William demanded. Alex had come busting in he had kicked in the door of the bedroom and cracked it, which was very impressive even if the door had been open.   
  
"Oh, Christ on a cross!" Alex said as he was holding one and a stake.   
  
"He's gone, Mate...Lucky for you. Do all of you have a sodding death wish? Next time you both stay in the cozy little house next-door! Do you hear me?" William grumbled.   
  
"I had to come. We should really get you to a hosp-" Alex began.   
  
"DO YOU BLOODY HERE ME?" William yelled.   
  
" Yes..Yes..I tried to keep Dru from coming back here, William, I really did...I couldn't bring myself to use force on her." Alex pleaded.   
  
"S'okay, Alex, you're a good man...An idiot man who thinks he can take on the scourge of Europe with a cross and a little stake, but a good one." William smiled. Alex was good. William wasn't going to like having to tell him that next time he is to use force on Drucilla in matters of saving her.   
  
"Do you hear me Dru?" William asked her more softly.   
  
"A queen can't lose her cup when it holds everything for her...She will be out a sword but that isn't for a while." She smiled. William took a painful breath to yell.   
  
"Where is my firecracker?" Drusilla asked Alex so happily he couldn't yell.   
  
"D-Debra.. I mean Dina...You mean Dina? She's with Willa. Safe and sound. " Alex answered.   
  
"Even blind and mad I'll keep her that way for as long as I can." Drusilla smiled.   
  
William snuck in to his own house as if he were going to rob his own wife while she slept. He laughed as he saw his face and hands filled with blood. He cursed as he heard the baby cry and Drucilla wake. He began to scrub his face and hand quickly.   
  
Who knew how Drucilla felt? She loved when William stayed home and played at being anarchist and philosophers and had parties. She was a sweet hostess as usual. She was so pleasant and lucid, until the others left. She refused to talk about Angelus. She tried to stop William from hunting him or other vampires. She cried and then gave him the silent treatment. When she started acting more mad then usual he told her he wouldn't hunt vampires. But, of course she knew that he and Alex weren't out at a pubs as they said they were. Dru came in the bathroom wearing a green flowing night gown. He wonder where she had gotten it. One breast was folded out of the top of it, like a giant white chocolate truffle. His daughter suckled. It really was her only concern.   
  
"Take her out if here until I'm done." He said curtly as he scrubbed.   
  
"I should leave with her-leave and not come back! You have red on you hands-You've been caught." Drusilla said holding Divya who was crying a blue streak again. William rolled his eyes. He didn't find his wife's prattle endearing at the moment.   
  
"Drucilla, I have nothing to be caught for. You know what this is on my hands." He said stiffly as he scrubbed his hands.   
  
"You are no Macbeth. You won't find him you know. Not until he turns around again... I spied it. That is why I don't worry. That's why I let you go. My boy needs to not get killed, it will make him stronger." She smiled.   
  
"Do you know where Angelus is, Drucilla?" He asked trying to sound as calm as possible. He sounded like her was asking his wife if she had taken money out of his wallet.   
  
"You have yet another black eye." She stated blankly. She went to leave the bathroom and he sprang in front of her. She didn't flinch. She giggled.   
  
"You have been fighting too long... I am not your prey." She laughed like he had read her a stupid love poem. Meanwhile, he had more of other's blood on him than his. She had taught herself to not be afraid when she should be. That was foolish.   
  
"I kill murdering monsters, they aren't prey!" He growled.   
  
"You hunt. They are the hunted. They are the prey." She stated simply with a small smile.   
  
"You make them sound like poor little field mice! Humans are their prey! You are his bloody prey! Where is Angelus?" He demanded.   
  
"You won't be prey, as long as you stay here in London." She sighed as if she was bored of him.   
  
"Does he talk to you? Can you hear him in your mind calling you? Is he promising you dolls?" William spat.   
  
"Is that supposed to be cruel? Poor boy. Knows nothing of cruelty." She smiled and touched his face. He grabbed her wrist. She gasped.   
  
"Perhaps, the only reason I haven't showed you cruelty is because you are holding my daughter, and if cruelty is the only way I can save you both I wonder if you would call it that!...A good discussion for the next party, no?" He was using his branding iron smile.   
  
"You are quite good at threats though, Quiet good." She laughed.   
  
"WHY ARE YOU PROTECTING HIM?" He roared. Divya began to cry, and so did William.   
  
"It isn't him I am protecting, Daddy." She said softly and handed him the baby before he could turn away. He looked at her and knew that she was sincere. It was almost enough. He held the fussy baby in one arm, and grabbed his wife with the other.   
  
"She is so like you, our daughter. Will of stone, heart of mush. When she cracks it's only on the inside, and lashes out the world...lash..lash..lash." She said poking playfully Divya who giggled now.   
  
"She is more daddy than daddy...YOU," She said poking him in the chest, "Have a HUGE battle ahead of you... Keeping our girl from lashing out at people... Unless they deserve it."   
  
"Why does this job fall upon me alone?... Drucilla?" He demanded.   
  
"Oh..little lamb caught in the black-berry patch..back..back..." She sang and looked only at the baby, as if he was not the one holding her. If he didn't know her he would say she was mad, even though it wasn't mad to sing to a baby.   
  
"Maybe you really are mad... Maybe I should have you locked away, it does seem to help wives listen." He said coolly and dropped her arm. She laughed.   
  
"Lash! A master of threats...Your eye is swelling with your head." She smiled. The baby coughed and sighed.   
  
"You are going to answer me when I get back." He said coolly still.   
  
His voice steady, his eye throbbing, his heart begging. He brought the baby to her crib holding his breath as he went past the nanny's room even though he, Willa, and Alex had cleaned all the blood.   
  
He supposed other husbands did not take a break from fiercely demanding answers to put the baby to bed, and weep. He supposed they did all it in one smooth slick attack. Relentless, like killing a vampire, or convincing one away from it's prey. HE was supposed to be the defiant dark horse. He was no good at being the tyrant no matter what Drusilla said. He would have to be.   
  
He found her in the kitchen still singing that sodding lullaby with a little package in her hand. More magic rot no doubt.   
  
"Drusilla." He said firmly. She turned and smiled, truly looking innocent. Truly looking like she wasn't stabbing at him using herself for the voodoo doll. She loved those sodding far out religions after all.   
  
"I-I want to know..." Her smile made him lose his phased. "Why does the job of keeping Divya a good girl fall on me alone?"   
  
"Oh..Oh...It's doesn't...She will have other watchers...though when she turns 18 you will smash one to bloody bits for some reason...and she will let you...Ooow, I spy the two of you can being so brutal together." She laughed and laughed. He knew this was real. She wasn't trying to put him off. She was truly lost in some vision of him pounding on a man that did something to his daughter. That didn't trouble him, there would be lots of that.   
  
"Dru..Where are you, Love? You talk of Divya and I and Alex and a Yank slayer-"   
  
"You could love her. She won't mean to hurt her...She won't mean to." Drusilla trembled.   
  
"But, Dru where are you? Are you there in any of these visions?" He asked softly.   
  
"Oh!" She tisked as if he asked her who would win the brown Derby.   
  
"When you see from your own eyes you don't see yourself, my sweet sweet boy."   
  
"I do if I really want to. I find a bloody mirror!" He snapped. There was that anger.   
  
"Oh, William! Next time I'll ask the little man who runs my vision carousel to stop it so I can find a looking glass...Do you prefer a full length one? Should I check to make sure I haven't a corset on?" She giggled.   
  
"It's because you go to him, isn't it? That is why you aren't with us in these bloody visions! That is why you kept him alive again, Drusilla- again!" He roared grabbing her inches from her face. She laughed. She could laugh like that when he yelled like this! He remembered taking her in every way all over this kitchen counter that night more clearly than ever. She had laughed then too. He wasn't to be taken seriously because he couldn't hurt her.   
  
"You know I hate him, you know it...You're the mad one." She laughed.   
  
"Am I? Love and hate are like yin and yang...So easy to flip to the other side..hmm?"   
  
"William, you are cruel with that tongue, it's just I am not used to such cerebral cruelty. " Tears were in her eyes now. Good. Maybe if she saw that he could hurt her...   
  
"What does that fuck give you that I can't?" He demanded. He swore because maybe did that would seem less cerebral.   
  
"Death! He can give me death! An end to my suffering!" She was crying now. He hadn't wanted her to really cry. He hadn't wanted her to really answer. He just wanted it to stop.   
  
"I didn't realize your life with me was so horrible!" He cried now too. He kept telling her he was owed an answer, and she had given him one. One he guessed he deserved.   
  
"No, it is because it is so wonderful...I was to be chaste...I was to be a good society girl...Quiet and pleasant and clean...Then he came...He took almost all of them! He left me Mum and sisters so they can judge and hate me, that is probably what kept me half-sane...REALLY being mad would have been better...Less pain, you wouldn't have wanted me-"   
  
"I know I would have...even when you out of you mind you are the only one who-" He wasn't yelling anymore. But, somehow he felt worse. She reached up and put her hand over his mouth.   
  
"I am wicked. I'd rather live my life with you then any other life I would have had...If Angelus had let me be, if he never killed my family, Do you think I would have went to you on that street? Or would I have been home with my aristocrat husband, or in the nunnery..to block out seeing all these paths and mazes flowers get trapped in!"   
  
She cried. He held her to keep her from sinking to the floor. An onlooker wouldn't understand that he was now crying for a totally different reason. What was it she had said? Someone was always watching. If they were they would never understand how he loved his wife due to his horrid behavior. The tears of self pity shed just moments before these disgusted him. He remembered now she had ended up crying when he made love to her that night. He couldn't remember why. He had done something awful. He had ruined it all.   
  
"I should be the one to die early by Angelus! I so very much want to be the one! But, all those paths are blocked! It isn't fair!" She sobbed. Her hands were so cold and it scared him. He realized she had been holding ice in a cloth for him. She had been here chipping away at ice for him for his eye. His eye was swelling like his head indeed, but he hadn't noticed.   
  
"You should just let me sit here and swell around the eyes until I'm bloody blind." He whimpered as she caressed his face. Her hands had froze from all that chipping. Even though it hurt to be touched, it felt too good not to take it.   
  
"Angelus...he wouldn't kill you he'd only...only make you like him..." He began his voice shaking. They never talked about it. She would want to be killed if she became a vampire. He knew would never be the one to do it. He would stop others from doing it. Drusilla was too powerful to have her soul completely taken. Part of it would still be her.   
  
"And that is why I don't go to him...But, I can't kill him either." She sniffed. They were both merely sniffling now, like children that had been beaten five minutes ago.   
  
"Why? Bloody hell! Why? You think he is responsible for your happiness as well as your misery? What about me Dru? Am I just another fucking doll he gave you? What about what I've done? Everything I've ever done has been for you!" He pleaded.   
  
"But you see, now we must both think of another now." She smiled.   
  
"There is no one else for me." He whined. He knew the onlookers would just see him as pitiful, but what was he to do?   
  
"There could be...But, I'm talking about Divya...We must do for her first...Do what we can...There is a vampire that has a soul...He loses it and it keeps finding him..like a shadow with no sun...He saves the world with the vampire slayer. The slayer would die without him and the world would end, William" She said sternly.   
  
"This is a vision you had?" His whining and pleading was gone as he could only be slack-jawed.   
  
"No, you ninney!...It is in many books...Books of Willa's...You should get your nose out of the fiction and anarchists papers sometime!" She giggled.   
  
"Why didn't you tell me this?"   
  
"I didn't think I would have to before our girl could walk or talk...And it wasn't fun news, so it didn't match the fun time...My visions are cloudy, but my life with you is clear...I would never go to Angelus, with this life that I have...This is such a short life, I wouldn't want to waste more of it banging my head against his fist for having you." She kissed him and pushed him to a kitchen chair as he heard the baby cry again.   
  
"Do you get sick? Do you really go mad from visions? Why do you never talk of yourself...Don't leave me..." He begged and pulled her into his lap, and did it without pain for the first time in days.   
  
"I thought you said that's what I ought of done...Leave you to your swelling and bruiting and such." She chirped as she lifted his pony tail and put a cool hand on the back of her neck.   
  
"Aren't you the sort of girl who never does what she ought?" He smiled sadly. She laughed. It was a good clean almost torment free laugh.   
  
"I believe I am, accept to when it comes to leaving my child. Some of my good grooming remains I'm afraid. The girl needs me." She chirped. She went to rise, and he stopped her.   
  
"I need you. I would have been nothing without you... I..AM nothing...without you. Please, don't leave me." He begged.   
  
"Oh, for Heaven's sake! I'm only going to check on her. Mummy can't be everywhere at once... I'll be back to tend to you later." She tisked.   
  
There was still that society girl in her that could pretend that something someone said was on an entirely different subject. Only she had insight into when she was pretending. And, she loved tending to people when they were all wounded little birds like this. She loved being the mother hen to anyone. He wondered if he was just one of her birds with a broken wing she had wanted to set. To stand out from all her guests did you have to be someone who didn't need her, but who she needed? It was a haunting question.   
  
"Divya, What is it?...Oh you dropped your lamb." Drucilla said soothingly as she picked up the stuffed fabric with a lamb's face sewn on, as soon as her baby fist grabbed it she stopped crying. Drusilla picked her up and kissed her. The baby dropped the lamb again and waited for her mother to pick it up. Before she could bend down Drusilla felt arms encircle her with the lamb in hand.   
  
"She has been testing us with this doll all sodding day! Who gave her this thing anyway? I don't remember it." William sighed in Drusilla's ear. She sighed back. Divya was more difficult without Betty. Drusilla didn't mind, she didn't think William did either, perhaps that was why they sighed. They had moved the baby into their room and even with her dropping her lamb it was nice.   
  
"Dru?"   
  
"All of my hair will fall out." She laughed sounding as far off as she was.   
  
"Drusilla, it won't. I wish you would stop saying that, Its a ridiculous fear." He grumbled as he sat down next to her on the bed.   
  
William was wrong people do desire to give their power willingly. Two very powerful women would wish to give up their power- their lives- for peace. But, there stood William. He was the one who would not allow these women to give up. He demanded that they keep their lives for as long as they could. Was he the one with all the real power? How unfortunate, an ordinary man at the top of this hierarchy. Gripping both these women in the strangle hold of life for as long as possible. So she was right. He was so very obsessed with power, and he held them to it, as ordinary men often do with powerful women.   
  
"It's not a fear and it is not ridiculous. When most women age they get fat or they bend...I don't, but all of my hair falls out...By, then it is white and I wear wigs, so I am not that sad..." She said flatly.   
  
"What- what are you saying? You're alive? Are you well? I knew it, I knew they were all wrong, Dru...You're too strong to die, or really go mad." He said all of this in a gasp and hugged her. She stared blankly at the window as she hugged him tightly.   
  
"But, I am not beautiful, at the end, wilting flowers lose the petals." She sighed quietly.   
  
"You think I care about that...I'll still love you. You don't have to tell me that!" He said holding her by the shoulders as he had just done before when he was yelling. Now he was smiling. She smiled to, for him.   
  
"You do, even though you age better... You'll have scars inside...outside...But you are still beautiful...love makes you beautiful." She asked her voice shaking as she laid down on the bed.   
  
"Is it you who loves me, Dru? Are you with me?" He begged as her pulled her to him.   
  
"Yes,...It is just the two of us...I'll tell you then...I'll tell you everyday." She was breathing hard and her heart was pounding, like she was running from death.   
  
"I love you too, Baby." His kisses fell like rain drops. Tears. She can see Divya. Standing out in the rain. Sixteen years from now. Twenty years from now. Twenty-three years from now. Twenty-three years, that is younger than Drusilla now. Her daughter holds her face up to the rain. Divya has love, from her family that doesn't end with blood ties. But, never from a man. The one man she could love has chosen other women to love and obcess over. Too add insult to injury these women would share so much in common with Divya, but they were not Divya. Drusilla would do anything to have things be different, but she knew any actions would only cause things to turn out as she saw them.   
  
"Do you forgive me?" She cried to William. Huge tears that felt like a jagged nail scrapping out the bottom of her throat.   
  
"There is nothing to forgive. Nothing is your fault. It's all Angelus. I do know that, Love." How right he was, and wrong too. He didn't know. He kissed her again and touched the bight scar on her neck with his finger. It wasn't fair all the things she saw, but couldn't help. Things were happening right now. She knew a girl cried in Hong Kong because she was growing tired. She knew the next girl wanted and dreaded her coming power to kill her lost lover. They were alone. Drucilla wasn't alone, but the words she had to say to her husband burned her up like ropes. It would have been easier to say. The queen of cups is tied. The ropes burn her wrists to the bone as she tries to escape. But, she had to struggle to say the real words because she felt for him as she did.   
  
"William... I have seen awful things all my life and do try to stop them all. I do try, but I can't... I'll keep trying... It is horrid to be given so much power and then contain none where it counts... I can't rid myself of it. Please, forgive me."   
  
"You see something very bad, baby don't you? Tell me." He said kissing her lips. This did calm her. She would tell him, and wouldn't. The truth was Drusilla spoke in metaphor and madness to keep others from going mad. She learned you could love someone that drove you mad, but did they really love you?   
  
"I see blood. So much blood, that it would be delightful for me if I were a vampire... Or maybe it is even sickening for a vampire... The world has a war... But, it's not as it seems. The plan for the world's end has demons behind it. They are stopped... We all do our part to stop them. Angel...Alliances that we never thought possible are formed... We lose people... Death is always an unwanted guest in this house. We think it's over when the war ends. You and I have peace for much of our mortal lives... But. This war William, it only lays ground for such darkness... Such darkness...And, I don't know how the story ends." She said bitterly to the ceiling   
  
"I don't think anyone knows that love... Things will keep going and going, all we can do is live our lives and do all we can." He said that with such ease as he leaned his head into hers   
  
"I think we do." She whispered as she held his face. It was a good face. Not clean. It had a scar.   
  
"I KNOW we do, Love." He said sure and sad.   
  
She loved him so much that she knew she couldn't tell him what she didn't see. She didn't see their daughter with them as they had bent bones and less teeth. She could see her daughter a bright explosion of light in the sky that stayed and stayed longer than anyone thought it would. They would take the pretty fire for granted thinking it would stay in the sky as long they wanted, but then it would burn out. No, it would be extinguished by a turned angel.  
  
End 


	2. Part 2 The Subject of Faith Ellington

On The Subject of Faith Ellington

by Strange Bint

Summary: Part Two to Peace & Anarchy - William & Drusilla. Drusilla was escaped Angelus before he could Sire her, but not before he made her crazy. Now she has been married to William for 17 years in Victorian England. There daughter is growing up. Who is she? What will they tell her about Vampires? Why is a certain orginization following her on an outing with her father?

Rating: PG-13 

Author Notes: Don't want to over talk this. Just thanks to the people that like this AU

Disclaimer: Not me, but I thought it would be a challange to give one of the most damned charcters a chance at being good.

Dear Sirs:

March 7, 1893

I am writing this report as you have requested to share with you what I experienced while observing the young Miss Divya Ellington, or "Faith" as she is called by her family. Again I wish to extend my deepest apologies for being seen on my observation. But, if I may be so bold as to say that my being discovered gives us information on Drusilla Drake Ellington's abilities as a seer. She was able to "see" me, and perhaps the other things she said to me, while bizarre, may be useful. 

Alas, I will write this report in full detail as promised as I am blessed with a photographic memory. I will tell you all as I have seen and heard it, and it will be one hundred percent accurate. However, some of the things I've heard are rather scandalous, and I just want to inform you, so be warned.

So, I finally got a good look at William Ellington, the anarchist writer, as only some know a vampire Slayer, and a good sample of the queerness that is his wife, Drusilla Drake Ellington. The woman is as odd and enigmatic as they say. They leave out that despite that she is very beautiful and charming. She somehow stays this way even when she is angry with you, and speaking nonsense. The rumors could very well be true; they could demons of a sort. Her for her charming madness, and he for his complex behaviors that he is made up of. He had surprising strength for a man of his stature. He was defiantly a man in his prime, no longer a boy, but not yet aged in the slightest way. He was often boyish and jovial, but beware when he became troubled about something. Then, his face would have a look about it that only an aged person who has seen much of life's horrors could make. So, perhaps this is why the rumor of him being a demon began and perhaps it is evidence for it being true.

It is this observer's opinion that he is not a vampire as some rumors have suggested. Perhaps, the reason he can write "fiction" on vampires so accurately is due to the possible connection that his wife, Drusilla Drake, had with The Scourge of Europe. However, we know that she is not a vampire as we can often see her walking around in day light with "Faith", and due to hospital records we know she gave birth to the girl. I do believe, the rumor that William Ellington is not the child's real father, and therefore a vampire are most likely false. After the encounter I had with the man I can say that the girl is surely his.

However, the relationship "Faith" has with her father is very complex, and perhaps worthy of more study. If she does become the Slayer, the relationship that "Faith" has with both parents is going to be an obstacle for the Council, as you will see by the end of the report. But I digress, William and "Faith" Ellington's relationship seemed to constantly be shifting and changing before my eyes. I felt dizzy. I suppose this is what happens when two such volatile personalities are together. William Ellington is a man who lives on his wits and emotions, which he feels deeply, and his daughter does not fall far behind. I sometimes can see the gentle academic he once was recorded to be in him. But, then there is a man of such stubbornness and rage, even in his sensitivity. Something had to occur to create this transformation. It must have something to do with his odd wife, and it could very well be supernatural. With all of this written I will give you my description of the events.

The young Miss Ellington stalked out with her father at the ungodly hour of nine. While most girls her age are getting ready for bed "Faith" set out with her father with concealed weapons towards the East End. When I say stalk they indeed stalked like two hunters stomping with fierce faces. There was very little talking between the two of them as they moved swiftly, looking like brothers in battle more than father and daughter. Here is what was said:

"Are you ready?" He asked.

"My answer is going to keep being yes, so desist asking." She said.

Then they seemed to ease into themselves and speak as they got closer the retched neighborhood no young girl should ever be in. I was glad, as we long for information on these subjects. But, I must confess I sometimes wished them back into silence.

"We are going near the catacombs where there has been TB, so you may see some sick children." He said gently.

"Why are we going there? They won't want sick people's blood." Faith whined like a child, which I suppose she is.

"Yes, they will! They prey on the weak, and take any easy thing they can get. They are filthy animals." He sneered at the thought of the creatures.

"Not the ones with brains and cunning. They want to make a challenge of it. They won't be going here at all. Only the weak and stupid ones." She insisted

"Smart girl. Most of them are weak and stupid, but are physically stronger than we are...for now." 

"When will I see a cunning ones? When will I see the scourge?"

"You are not ready for the scourge...besides The Scourge is gone." He said firmly.

Of course this caused great excitement for me. He mentioned the scourge. Furthermore, he said The Scourge was gone! For those new members of the Council I will give a brief summary. (Though, even if you are new, I would hope that you have SOME knowledge on this subject.) The scourge, or Angelus, the most vicious of vampires has not been seen for about thirteen years. But, it is dangerous to assume that this evil monster, who some say is the anti-Christ is dead. As the Council knows, it was assumed he was dead for three years when the reports of his horrid gruesome style of killing resurfaced. It was discovered that he was indeed alive. He seemed to kill quite a few people in a small California mining town. Oddly, this is where our current troublesome Slayer resides. Then, he traveled to London and for a month and did his usual carnage. Then he mysteriously vanished again. William and Drusilla Ellington have knowledge on Angelus, knowledge the Council does not have. It is evident with the conversation William Ellington had with his daughter. The rest of which went like this:

"He isn't really gone though, is he? I mean he is just sorry for what he did. I can't say I give a damn...Why don't we try to find him, Pop. After I get chosen." The girl said.

This family has the audacity to believe they know their daughter will be the chosen one!

"Promised you mother I wouldn't." 

"Well, I made no such promise. And why?...You both never tell me why she would ask you to promise such a thing!"

"Maybe she wants me to spend more time with her than wasting my whole life on vengeance...That is a hard lesson to learn." He seemed to say the last part as a warning to the girl.

"But it is to be my job to kill vampires." Faith insisted. Again, as if she were ALREADY a Slayer.

"But not to kill innocents, and your mother sees Angelus as an innocent." William sighed, and then looked his age, whatever it may be.

"But, you don't, do you?" Faith demanded.

"It is not my place or yours to make that judgment, only your mothers." William Ellington told the girl.

"Maybe she can't make it right. Maybe Angelus made her too mad when it comes to the subject of him."

Of course, I continue to not understand any of this. They act as if The Scourge of Europe is hiding somewhere, and they say Drusilla Ellington thinks of him as an innocent! This is a beast with absolutely no fear or remorse. He may hide fortacticle reasons, but fear or guilt would not be among them. I am not sure what power Drusilla holds over Angelus's life. I can understand why the girl would say her mother is mad, as I have heard previous reports of it. It is believed Drusilla Ellington is the sole survivor of the great Saint Lady of Victory convent slaughter that was carried out by Angelus and his paramour, Darla.

However, the idea that Drusilla Ellington was mad made William Ellington snap at the child. Sadly, it was probably the soundest thing the girl said all evening.

"You're mother is not mad on any subject! Are you to be a sheep, one of them? That is going to see any unconventional behavior as madness? If you are then I don't know what I bother teaching you for. You can go off to boarding like all the other girls and learn to courtesy and how to hold a bloody tea cup!" 

"I don't think that my suggestion means I'm conventional. Maybe all it means is that mother isn't always right, which I know is outlandish. How come you tell me to question everything but her?" The child said this with sarcasm beyond her years.

I figured Ellington would box her ears, but he did not.

"We can turn around right now and forget this hunt!" He roared. 

"No! No! Pop, I'll forget it, okay...I promise I won't ever mention The Scourge again, lest he come up in an academic way...I'm sorry. I didn't mean to upset you." She seemed a poised young lady now, as her father grew sterner.

This shows that the child can be disciplined, though she rarely is. Still, it is a good thing for the counsel to know that "Faith" Ellington can be disciplined, if she does turn out to be chosen. 

"But, you know very well that you also showed me how to hold a tea cup." The girl joked now.

"Well, you must be able to bag a rich man when I die to be able to buy your weapons and such." He said back. I do hope he was joking, and not telling his daughter to become a gold-digger.

"I-I just think that you can be blinded by love when it comes to Mum." The girl said carefully now.

I expected him to get snappy again. He is quite unpredictable. He smiled instead.

"May you have a man blinded by love for you." He said after a short silence, which at this point I welcomed.

I was tired of this pointless bickering. William Ellington was allowing the child to say whatever she pleased, even if it troubled him. I thought that this conversation would give me more information of what happened between Drusilla Drake and the scourge, but they seemed to just dance around it and not give me any information at all. 

"Yuck!" She scowled. "I wouldn't want a blind man. I would want a strong uncompromising one, if any! Not bloody likely I'll have any."

"Why do you say such things?" William asked.

Again he surprised me. He was not angry. He seemed amused and concerned. 

"What man would want a Slayer?"

Indeed, what man would want such a willful mouthy girl, regardless? I must say, again, the girl seemed the more sensible between the two of them on this subject.

"Many men would be happy to have a Slayer. A woman who could open up their eyes to new worlds they had no idea existed." This romantic idea must be left over from his days of poetry.

This romanticizing of the Slayer is more dangerous than bringing the girl to the East End. If it is impressed upon a Slayer it could compromise her duty.

"You wouldn't. You wouldn't want a strong woman. You can only love a woman like Mummy, a woman who needs shielding from this world... A woman who likes all your Heathcliff nonsense." The girl was referring to "Withering Heights."

I was surprised the girl had the skill to read such a book. I was surprised she was permitted to read it. Then I remembered the trashy novels her father writes on vampires.

"You're mother is a very strong woman! Do you think you and I would last with those visions scampering around in our brains?... And what do you mean by 'Heathcliff nonsense'...I am nothing like that bruiting Sod, and your mother is no Catherine. Your mother and I only love each other." William insisted.

There in no doubt that his wife indeed has visions, and is a seer.

"I am not stupid! Your disagreement may be infrequent, but when they do happen they can burn the manor down." Faith retorted.

I think she meant that metaphorically, as they only have a two-family house, not a manor. So, she has abstract intelligence that could be useful for a Slayer.

"People fight, Div...Especially married people, who love each other. When you are older you'll understand."

He called her "Div", which I assume is short for Divya, her real name. The two of them seemed to switch the names they called each other depending upon the mood.

"I suspect that most married people don't fight about the vampire scourge."

I do not know why a husband and wife would fight about this horrid vampire. Everyone agrees he is terrifying.

"That is because everyone else who has encountered The Scourge is dead." Mr. Ellington could be right.

No one has ever reported having some sort of relationship with Angelus. All our information is from eyewitness reports, or people he stayed with and did not kill because it would attract too much attention. The Scourge loves attention, but unlike human serial killers he does not want to be caught.

"Yes, and when I kill him your fights will stop."

"There is no more scourge, Divya."

"If he is truly dead I think mother wouldn't hear the ghosts of his victims in her head...You didn't think I knew about that did you? You've had to quiet her nightmares more than you've ever had to quiet mine...She needs you."

So, there is a great link between Drusilla Drake and the scourge. She has troubling visions of him, and yet wants him to live.

"And I need her.... Nothing wrong with a bit of needing." William Ellington had said.

"That is why there is no marrying for me. I must need no one. I am to be the Slayer...All the books that Auntie Willow has the Slayer is alone. Protecting normal people from horrors."

"That is a whole lot of non-sense. You need me and your mother now."

"I do, but when I am the real Slayer I won't."

"Bullocks! Look at you and your swelled head! There will always be more training." 

"But, I will be stronger than you, a better fighter." 

"Ah, ah, ah! Stronger doesn't mean you will be a better fighter...You can be strong and a horrid fighter if you have no knowledge of the fight, and I could still win."

"Yes, yes." She rolled her eyes impaceintly.

Though the girl wasn't interested, this was the one of the few times I was impressed with his working with her. Though, arguing with her that the Slayer NEEDED people was the worst thing anyone could have done. Then, I was led to false hope again on the subject of Angelus.

"Is that how you won against the scourge, Daddy? You were a better fighter even with his strength?"

I noticed the name change to "Daddy". Perhaps it was to help him not turn sour on the subject of Angelus. If it was it worked. He smiled.

"Yes and no. I would be lying if I said I was a better fighter than he was. He is an excellent fighter. I would say I understood him more than he understood me...I never underestimated him. He underestimated me...You have to know what fuels a big bad man like that fire, Faith."

"And what is that?" She asked.

He was silent.

"If it is about lust for Mummy don't think I can't understand that..because I can...a little."

This eleven-year-old girl was talking about lust!

"I wish it were that simple, Divya. Lust can be unhealthy, but it isn't evil, And he is evil."

He was not angry with the girl but teary. Please don't ask me why he was telling her lust wasn't evil. It is one of the seven deadly sins! Why does a girl that age even know of lust? Then the conversation took an even odder turn.

"You do seem to do quite fine by yourself keeping the home safe, and slaying the duller of vampires." 

"Well, there is an odd compliment." He smirked. 

"You don't need a Slayer really." She shook her head.

"The world would end with out a Slayer." 

"Yes, but YOU don't need one. You need Mummy. She needs you. You fight Angelus and tell me nothing of it, as if it is a grown up cocktail party conversation! My parents need no Slayer." 

"You are not our Slayer. You are our daughter." 

"You need each other, and no Slayer. How can you need a daughter?" Before he could respond she grabbed him.

"Do you hear it?" She asked him.

I must admit I heard nothing, but that may only be because I was farther back.

"You will do as I say and stay behind me." He said firmly, and she did as they went running off into the alley.

By the time I caught them they were comforting a lady of the night, or should I say girl. Faith was a bit rough with the girl.

"Answer me!" She was demanding as a girl was bent over weeping.

"It's all right we won't hurt you." William was saying.

"Someone else might again if you don't answer me!" the child yelled at the girl.

"Yeah- yeah- He had big teeth he did, and an awful strange face...He said- he said I wahn't young enough! I'm only 16!" The girl was muttering what could pass for English.

She seemed insulted. A lady of the night no doubt, perhaps she just thought he rejected her services and not her life.

"Les go!" Faith demanded as Mr. Ellington seemed to want to say more to the dirty girl.

Faith seemed to pick up more of the street cockney accent as she walked through the East End, and so did her father. When they were out of the neighborhood there accents were typically Middle Class with an occasional slippage into Cockney. Here it was a lost cause as they could barley be distinguished from the natives themselves in their speak.

This next part is very troubling indeed. William grabs hold of his daughter's arm and they promenade calmly down the street. 

"'Ey! Gov! Wanna go with the lil' girl for a bit!" He said to the leering man.

Faith smiled passively and looked at her shoes. I had no idea what was this was about. I was confused at her change in body language. Once I did figure it out I realized this father and daughter were playing at something no decent person should know.

"How much would you like?" The man said in a proper accent.

"Three pounds 'll do it!" Mr. Ellington smiled seedily.

It occurred to me what they were doing and I was appalled!

"Three pounds, my word! She probably has been up and down this street for less. I think that you are trying to--" While the man was talking William got out a stake and changed him.

This happened all so very fast. William was on the ground and he flipped the man. That was when Faith charged the man with a cross.

"-take advantage because you believe I am naive to this business, but I'm not. You see."

The man continued as her lifted the girl up and looked into her eyes. Of course, he was a vampire. He was in full face of the demon, and he did growl rather viciously. I could hear it well from where I was. The girl called him a rather vile name and burned his face with the cross. He yelled, but did not let go of the girl. But, he turned to dust making the girl drop to the ground with a grunt. William had staked him from behind. It was really quite an impressive clean staking.

"Ouch! My arse!...That was brilliant his meat hooks were gripping me so tight and then I could feel them turn to sand around me...Has that ever happened to you?" She giggled as if she had been ice-skating and fell!

"Bloody Hell, Faith!" William roared, "What have I told you about running at them when I am down?"

"No foul language?" She asked sheepishly.

"That is it! We're going!" He blustered.

"Aw, Pop! C'mon we killed it and the whole nine. You weren't supposed to change him yet either. You were supposed let me get first hit when he came up to me! You didn't follow the plan either. You were the one that bollixed it-- Not me!" 

"You do as I say when I say it!"

"But, you weren't doing as you say when you say it - said it. You became a Grrr-man..and rushed things so, I did as well. It's all your fault really. The more I think of it the angrier I am at you. You could have gotten us both killed, you Sod!"

(Yes, she said 'a Grrr-man. I suppose that is some kind of code they have.) 

"Listen! You are not the Slayer yet and I can still take you over my knee!"

Then the girl became distracted. "Look! There might be one up there!"

She charged a woman who was carrying a bundle, that bundle turned out to be a child.

"Get Away from us your dirty whore! You are probably the vermin that spread the sickness to my child!" The woman sobbed.

"What's wrong with her?" She asked meekly.

"Blind little bitch can't you see! She's dead!" The woman yelled.

"Don't talk to her like that! She's just concerned...Does she have any wounds on her neck?" William said.

"I can talk to your whore however I want! Concerned my bloody arse! Your tramp just wants to pick my pockets while I haven't got a free hand! Too busy carrying my dead child!" 

"Listen, I'm not just a girl...We can help each other," Faith said.

"You mean you can help yourself! What do you want? My dead Vanessa's clothes?...So, you can tell me what bloody vile man YOU got all randied up so 'ee went and did this to her! You want MY bloody help!.. It's not my fault your parents didn't want you! They probably saw what sort of girl you was and that's why they threw her to your pimp there! I've seen the two 'a ya out here peddling her arse night after night!"

"You have-" William began furiously until his daughter grabbed his arm.

The woman kept walking and weeping. I guess these people just walk around in the streets with their dead. It would be tragic if she wasn't so vulgar.

"I am sorry, Dad." Faith said so lowly I had to move closer to hear.

"I am sorry if I disappointed you...It isn't your fault. It's mine. I know I'm no Slayer yet, and I shouldn't be actin' like one...I just want to help you so much I-" That was when William lifted the girl up, not like the vampire had, but he held her gently.

"Divya, you could never ever disappoint me! This is all for you, Pet. This isn't to help me get some bloody Yah yahs out to feel like a big man. This is all for you to get used to what you will have to face. Those other Slayer girls never did that. They never had a chance, but you do. You will be the best one...So, good you can tell my Grand children all about it...Now, give Daddy a kiss, Bit."

"I don't kiss crazy men! Didn't you hear I have no father...he threw me to you! Now put me down or they will really think you are a child peddler."

"Oh, bloody...Sweet 'Bit, is there no innocence left in you at all?" He actually seemed to tear. 

"Not one drop."

"I don't believe that...Now give Daddy a kiss or I won't put you down at all. I'll carry you all the way home."

That was when he saw the woman. I knew she didn't belong there. She was too beautiful and clean and graceful for such streets. Yet, she walked in them liked she owned them, but not in a territorial aggressive way as Faith or William did. She walked with an ease of a child who had no cares. Yet, William looked extremely concerned at the sight of her. He was shaken in a way I had yet to see, which was odd considering all the prior events.

"Drusilla!" He exclaimed and dropped Faith on her feet. Faith glared at the woman.

"Drusilla, what in God's name are you doing here! Did you walk here by yourself? Alone?" He demanded putting his arm around the woman. She petted his head but never looked at him. She looked at Faith only with a sort of a bittersweet smile.

"I came because I saw eyes on my girl...And I wanted to see who eyes they were and what they wanted." She said in a bittersweet tone.

She smiled at the girl who scowled.

"Pet, if you see a vision just wait until we get home...If you feel ill after it go upstairs to Willa and she'll fix you something. This place isn't for you. It will upset you, Baby." He said gently, pleading as if he was at her mercy.

"Daddy is so silly, isn't he Faith? He doesn't realize how much more attracted unpleasant people are to girls, and how quickly we get used to their eyes and hands...But, NO HANDS will be on you! We cut them short at eyes." She was so odd. She had been giggling to the girl as if they shared a joke.

Then she became very rattled, and then by the end of her comments she was pleasant again.

"Mum, hands are on me all the time...Vamp hands. I have to fight them, remember? You will really be in the way if every time that occurs to you- you set out here and give Pop a heart attack and the whole nine."

"Faith, you show some respect! Your mother had a vision, and you know how troubling that can be." William yelled.

"They aren't always troubling. I saw you...a sweet boy crying on his poems...I saw our girl before she came standing here clear as day with that brassed-off look on her tender hearted face...They aren't always troubling at all."

"And they aren't always right...They could just be headaches."

"Faith! You better apologize for that right now, or you can be in bed by now for the next week."

"I am sorry, Mum. I know you can have visions that are right-sometimes."

"It's all right. You are not the same sort of girl as Mummy, few girls are, but the fact that we are both such odd girls makes us friends during the day...You just get cranky with Mummy at night. It's hard when you know something others don't and they think you are the ones hurting them." The woman said.

I had no idea what she was saying. She sounded and looked like no mother I've ever seen. Faith took her mother's arm in all her oddness.

"Did you buy the seeds at the market today? Can Sophia come to the house tomorrow and plant them with us?" Faith looked up at her mother suddenly asking her questions a well groomed girl might ask her sane mother.

Why her mood suddenly changed and she was no longer scowling and sour towards the woman is a mystery to me. Maybe she has inherited some of her mother's madness. The Council should be aware of this as a possibility. No one in the family seem to think this mood swing was odd, nor was discussing a girl's social gathering after she had just pretended to be a whore in order to catch merely one vampire.

Can we take a cab home, Mum?" Faith asked her mother, as if none of this had happened.

"Yes...We will see your friend and plant daisies...I think they will grow well this year, though there are some things I don't know... William, get us a cab... We will run from the eyes." She smiled.

I thought it would be too late to see any more of them. They were odd and troubling, but it is clear to me that the Council could learn much from them. So, I followed them to the house. I confess I really didn't know how I would look upon them when I got there. But, for in this instance their odd life paid off. There they all were out in front of the house. Their boarders were there too. One was a willowy sort of woman and the other a tall dark haired man. Faith was chasing a piece of paper with a sword that was blowing in the wind. She couldn't catch it.

"I'll get you Auntie Willa...I'll get you! Wait until I am the Slayer!" The girl kept saying to the thin woman as she chased the blowing paper.

I have no idea what this was about. I feared she would chase the paper into the street. She was so focused on it and the woman seemed to be thinking hard about something else.

William Ellington was still blustering about his wife going into the East end unescorted. 

"I don't care what you saw! If you saw something dangerous what good is it throwing yourself into the danger, Dru?" 

"I do it for the same reason you do it- for her and for you. I wouldn't deserve such gifts if I couldn't protect them." 

"Dru..please! Promise me you won't do that again. What if something were to happen to you? I have my hands full with Divya. No, it's not Div. I have my hands full with the vile street pecking away at her. There are the ones that want to violate her, and the good God-bloody fearing people that blame her for being violated...and what it's doing to her! At least I got to kill that vampire, but what of the ones who aren't vampires? Can't she just be a child? Why can't she stay a child?" He was pleading.

"She is our child. Their Slayer, but our child." The woman said as if HE were a child and caressed his face.

I don't understand any of this at all! William seems to be encouraging his child to go into the streets and masquerade as a child of the streets, yet he is upset at the effects. Then why on earth is he bringing her there? He seems to feel that knowing of the street life is necessary for training. That is ludicrous! A Slayer should be a proper girl. She is only to know that she is slaying vampires under the instruction of her Watcher. Knowing of the life around the vampire will only distract her. She is a Slayer, an instrument for good. She is not to be a guttersnipe or an undercover detective in the seedy world of vampires! She is indeed just a child, and should be treated like one. I need not mention what an effective Slayer Huen Rong is now, and she knows nothing but how to fight and slay and the evils of demons. If she were to know her whole country is falling apart around her and the demons are taking advantage of that chaos it would only distract her as we have seen it distract Miss Ellington. 

I did see Drusilla Drake walk over to her male border and put her arm around him and whisper something in his ear. It was odd. She had an affection for him, yet William didn't seem jealous. He just puffed on his cigarette and looked at his daughter, who was laughing and still chasing that blowing paper.

"Faith! Why don't you stay with us tonight? I have more stories I can tell you of America and my friend the vampire Slayer," the border said with an American accent

At this I became shocked! Americans! Friends with the rogue Slayer! This connects the Ellington's to The Scourge and the rogue Slayer and they have a Potential child! We must continue to watch them extremely carefully.

"Mate, you mind asking me first!" William snapped.

"Talk to your wife. It was her idea." He said.

Drusilla went over to her husband.

"We need to talk, my knight...About the eyes, alone. Also, you seem to need more comforting that she does. Children are resilient. You can bend them so far and they go right back. Why do you think I still sing, and have my dolls...Though I never did go right back, did I?" 

"Dru, Dru...I love you for who you are through hell and the walk to Heaven, I would never want you to go back. I will never go back!"

And they kissed. Yes, yes right in the open air with their child right there. No shame. It was appalling. There mouths were open. As if it couldn't get worse SHE whispered something to HIM of her sexual desires for him. I thought this was going to continue and I was appalled. So, I looked over at the child who was with the border. 

"Tell me the story where you got the Slayer the cannon! Tell me how the Slayer doesn't have to die for me to be called because she died for five moments already!" Faith said as if she were talking about the most pleasant of subjects.

I thought how beneficial hearing of the rogue Slayer would be for us, since she has cut off contact from us.

"And Joan is alive thanks to whom?" The American man asked slyly.

"You Uncle Alex!" Faith sang.

"Oh C'mon, Mate! You know you're a hero of circumstance. That bird forced her lungs to work again by threatening them from the grave! She will never die...too bloody stubborn." William laughed.

"That's beautiful, Will... Quite the little love poem, better than your usual. Write that down and send it to Joan." The man scoffed.

It is very clear that these people have a strong relationship to the Ellington's and the American Slayer. It is dire that the counsel keeps watch on all of them.

"I wonder if I will drowned when I'm the Slayer." Faith seemed to ponder this thought happily.

"Faith!" The willowy woman gasped. 

"What? Then Uncle Alex can bring me back to life and there will be three Slayers!" She marveled.

This was the first time I saw her act as young as she truly was. I was expecting William to tell her to stop being so dangerously foolish. Yes, she was young, but if he truly wanted her to be a Slayer he would not allow her to be so naive about death. I was the fool to expect him to do anything proper, I suppose.

Instead of chiding her, William grabbed the girl up in his arms and she laughed. She said he was mad and cursed at him, using language my daughters will never even know of when they are women. But then, she quieted down and clung to him. I just don't understand their relationship. He treats her like a brother in arms, he exploits her and uses her as vampire bait, and then he is coddling her. This man is going to drive this child as mad as his wife!

"You're interrupting my story, Will. Do you need attention from your women every second!" The American man demanded jokingly.

"Shut-up! You're a dirty child snatcher taking her from me...All your stories of your dirty little country and that pig headed bird..." He said.

So, William finds the American Slayer "pig headed", which is interesting.

"Ah, you couldn't take your eyes off her! If I were Drusilla, and my marriage was for love and not just friendship, I wouldn't be pleased," The quiet woman said suddenly.

"Women! I was only fascinated by her fighting ability! I only have eyes for two girls. I never got that kiss, Bit." He was saying to the girl now, who he held like she was a much younger child now.

She kissed him, and I was relieved to see that it was innocent in its nature with all this talk of child snatching. I am afraid you can put nothing past people like this. You have to remember that although they seem to care for each other they don't have normal morals. They are anarchists. It is my opinion, that with all the inappropriate things going on with this "family" it is a miracle that the child remains chaste. But, what they are doing expressing all this affection in public and with a girl that is no longer a babe, I don't know. I was concentrating on her so much I did not see the woman approach me. She seemed to be more beautiful up close.

"I want you to know," she said, "That I spy you spying me, and you think we are dirty, but you are the one thinking up all the dirtiness... and I find it disgusting! I thought I was angry, but I think I just have sorrow for you, and your daughters."

I must say I was very startled. I was looking too closely at William and Faith and I didn't hear her approach. Of course, I am still trying to understand her remarks. Mad people are often paranoid and think people are thinking lascivious thoughts about them, and I think that this was the case here. But, where her madness ends and her seeing begins is so difficult to say.

"Drusilla! Who-what is it?" The quiet woman was the first to notice. 

"These are the eyes. They look like they are only two, but there are many many more behind them." She called to them.

I was going to lie. I was going to say I didn't know what she was talking about and say that I was just passing by. But she was staring at me, and I noticed that her eyes were almost violet. I didn't know eyes could be violet. She asked me how long I had been watching, and I told her the truth! I said I had been watching since Faith and William left. I cannot tell you why I did that! I did not sense that she was using any witchcraft. I was just so distracted by her eyes. 

"You stay away from my mother!" Faith said fiercely shoving me a little.

She was really very small- indeed a child of eleven up close.

"Who are you?" William demanded his hands were around my throat and just when he was about to squeeze his wife, Drusilla, commented: 

"He is from the Watcher's Council. Indeed they want to watch us!" Drusilla said.

"Oh bloody hell! These Wankers!" He spat.

So, he is familiar with us as we are with him.

"I don't know they have some excellent archives in their library." The quiet girl said.

"I thought they were smart! How smart can you be if you thought my mother wouldn't sense you watching us?" The girl demanded.

She seemed so indignant of her mother's powers now, when she had discounted them before. But I thought it wasn't wise to bring that up, being that it would show how carefully I had been listening earlier.

"The Council only wants to help your daughter. We have her best interests at heart." I assured them or tried to.

"Oh really? Maybe the same thing could be said for other unwanted elements in our lives. Imagine, all these years I've been wrong and all those vampires and demons that were trailin' us were really guardian angels? Boy, is my face red, because they're all bloody dead! I should kick you're Nancy boy arse! You don't know how lucky you are that I wasn't the one that saw you."

William had my jacket, while his male border told him that the Council seemed "only harmful in how boring" we were. They are all familiar with us, and I couldn't figure out how, and then it occurred to me that they American Slayer must have told them horrible tales of us. This is very unfortunate.

"Maybe demons would not be elements in your life and your child's life if you did not seek them out...It's so interesting.." I said, "You walk, talk, and move like a man of the street, Mr. Ellington, and yet I know you are not one. You're an Oxford man of '76, right? Literature, I believe?"

Due to all my training I refused to be rattled.

"How the hell do you-" He was shaking me. I remained calm because there had never been reports of him killing a human man. I tried to put the reports of him pounding them out of my mind. His wife had the sense to grab his arm and interrupt him.

"My king of cups has many chalices. He just needed them shined." Drusilla laughed. 

"Thank you, Poodle." He smiled at his wife now letting go of me.

"What does that-mean?" I had to ask.

My asking was in vane.

" You mean you egg heads didn't make a Drusilla to English dictionary yet? Ah, it's easy for you all to get the goods on William, but Dru is a little bit of a puzzle, huh?" The American male said.

I think it was some sort of an insult.

"Alex, take Faith upstairs with you." Drusilla said.

"No! I need to stay here. Why does he know where Daddy went to university? What if he's bad?" She whined now.

"Faith, a girl's life should be as simple as possible. You'll make your own way, but for now the one path is smooth, and your mother is the sand...No go!" I was still so very confused, but I understood she was being firm with the girl.

The girl did too and she left with the man and the quiet woman. 

"William go with our girl." She commanded. Her voice sounded different. Lower.

"If you think I am leaving you alone with Mr. Bloody Holmes here, you're insane. Just because he looks like a Nancy doesn't mean he's harmless. I heard about these Wankers. They probably want to know how your seeing powers work. They'll hook you up to electrodes or something." He spat.

Indeed the American had told him some outlandish tale of the Council. Before I could argue Drusilla spoke.

"I wish it was me they wanted. We will come to an agreement tonight." She said to me. 

"Dru what-" William began, but she merely looked at him and he stopped talking.

"You cannot have her anymore than you do! She's our daughter, not your Slayer! You men violated her! So, we teach her to fight off the future monsters that will try violate her." Drusilla screamed at me now tearfully.

"Madame! I have no idea what you are talking about! We do not violate girls! We teach them everything of the hidden world of fighting demons. We ready them, in case they are to become chosen." I was outraged at whatever her accusations were.

"Ready them indeed! You men started this all! You injected a girl with a bit of a disease, and told her it was an immunity to it...Perhaps you are right. Perhaps the only cure is a bit of a disease. Many of us girl's have a bit of the disease in us. You want to take my daughter to your school- you're infirmary." She glared at me with those eyes. She wasn't angry with me anymore.

She seemed to find her own prattle tragically amusing. I searched for some sense in what she was saying.

"Well..W-well...We have a school. It's very nice and she would get a proper education. The finest education that a girl could receive..and..and she would be with other girls...girls like her..girls that have the potential to-to..." She had reduced me to stammering. I knew I wasn't there to talk about the school. This was hardly the time or place to convince them of the importance of the girl boarding with us.

"No! Your violation of her is over. You won't teach her with blinders." She said firmly now.

"Madame, I really must insist that you stop making these mad accusations. The Council does not control who is a potential or who is chosen! If anyone is violating the girl it is you...and what you are allowing your husband here to do. Your training methods are crude! A girl that age should know nothing of the streets let alone the immortals of them- poverty and prostitution! You're ruining her! Why-why-why she talks like she's in the bloody Navy. I pray that she DOES NOT become the Slayer now. But, if we were to school her she would have a chance at becoming a decent Slayer. She would have a better life with us!"

"You bloody pompous gits! You university Nancys don't want to know of the street because it's all too unpleasant! Well, you know who does know of the street? The man who cleans your chimneys! The woman who shines your floors! You think only those you exploit will suffer while you stand idly by and study it all! Well, you know who else could get quite the street education? Your bloody kid or your wife or your daughter, while they are riding home from their Nana's house- or going to confession at a bloody church- something or someone can

--(He clapped his hands in front of my face.)—

just grab them and they are gone- Gone from you and into the street- if they're lucky. They are gone- Taken by the things you want to teach my daughter so much about...But, you know nothing about them, and what they can do-really."

He was the one that seemed pompous to me, and arrogant.

"That was a very quaint little proletariat speech, William! The Council knows things that would shake you to the core. We are not the ones standing idly by- we are the ones saving the bloody world! You should be in jail with what he is exposing the child to. If anyone is exploiting here it's you using that little girl to fit in with rough necks like that Yank-" That is when he hit me, which explains my eye today.

"You buggering clueless Wanker! Get the hell out of here now, or I'll show you what a roughneck is! You think a Slayer fights in the schoolhouse! She fights in the street...and up until now she died there...Died there too early...most of them still children! You don't care when they die; you just have a new one to tinker with! You have all your pretty little maids in a row! You teach them nothing of the real fight you sodding mother fu-" He was utterly out of his gourd.

He was going to hit me again.

"My Lamb..Shhhh.. Settle. Don't throw the baby out with the children's drowning water. Ours will have the best of both worlds." His wife said quietly. She was holding his fist, which was a very dangerous thing to grab.

I have no idea how he didn't end up accidentally hitting her.

"What happened to you, Mr. Ellington? I know that you are an intellectual man. I know that you WERE a gentleman. I am shocked that you would not want to work with us being that you know the truth of the demon world. What on earth happened to you that made you into this pig-headed barbarian?" I demanded.

"What happened to me? What happened to me?" He gave a sort of high-pitched insane laugh while his wife was whipping tears from his face. 

"Nothing happened to ME! It is all other Men. Men like you, trying to take and bend the women I love into something that would kill them! Men like you, who torment me with what they will do to them, and tell me it is my fault...So; I did what any gentlemen would do in that situation. I learned what crept inside the other men's heads. I learned where it was flawed, so I could protect the girls. I am still very much the gentleman Mr. "

"Wyndam." 

"---Mr. Wyndam. I devote myself to the protection of my ladies. I just finally found love is all, and beauty." He was smiling now. I would say it was a mad smile, like his wife's, but it wasn't. It was as if there was a big joke that I didn't understand. 

"I assure we only want to help your daughter...And we are only curious about your wife due to her... interesting...history and abilities." I said.

"What he really wants to know is what happened to me." Drusilla smiled.

"Well..Well that would be nice." I confessed

"Don't tell him a thing! Drusilla, I don't want to have to worry about these sods too, Love...Enough people will want Faith...and you." William glared at me, as he spoke to his wife.

"I assure, Pet, the help that they will bring us will out do any harm they bring us. They have so many books about our daughter's sisters, and her enemies. We'll need them, even though you already have a whole library in your beautiful head. Sometimes, to survive one must have strange bed fellows." Drusilla said in his ear and smiled at me as if I were an idiot.

"I should know better than to question you." He said to her.

"Go ahead. Ask me something. Ask me one question." Drusilla looked deep into my eyes again and commanded me as if I were her lovesick William. "...Then I want a watcher to visit with us with books...like a school tutor would...There will be no more talk of her going to school with you, and there will be no more insults of my husband, and we will continue to give her our own training in Lu of yours. Is this understood?" She said this to me and I merely nodded.

"Her name. Her name is Divya why do you call her Faith?" I found myself asking her.

"I named her what she is- Devine and brilliant.. I call her what she needs to survive." The woman smiled arrogantly now.

The last thing I saw was Faith running out of the house to embrace her parents. She had probably been watching out the window waiting for me to go. She hugged her father as if he had been the one in danger of me!

"Don't worry, Bit... You and I can handle the monsters that we can see, and your mother will handle the ones that we can't... You are the safest girl in London," He told the girl.

"I know!" She said indignantly. "I can't wait to be the Slayer, so you and Mummy will the safest parents." 

There are so many reasons to keep watch on this family; I don't even know where to begin. We must meet and discuss how to get closer to this family. This does seem to be a difficult task. However, it seems that the mad seer is willing to have a watcher as a tutor for her daughter. I believe we need to send someone that appears to be young and non-threatening to William Ellington, as he is the most volatile. Drusilla also seems to be easily charmed by handsome young men other than her husband. So, I purpose that we send a young soft-spoken gentleman to tutor the girl. He can attempt to build an alliance with the girl subtly. It is dire that we do this as soon as possible as the girl already had warped ideas about us. I suggest that we send my son, who has just graduated out of the academy. Percy is very charming and he can subtly study Drusilla Drake as he tries to tame her brat. Our biggest challenge in the way of this is going to be Mr. William Ellington of course. With out the man I do believe that his wife and daughter would become dependant on the Council, as women, even one's with power cannot survive on their own. If Divya "Faith" Ellington does become the chosen one I recommend that the Council then discuss a new plan of how to contain Mr. Ellington. However, I believe presently we should try to gain their trust.

Sincerely,

Mr. Lawrence Wyndam, Esq.

Head Council Liaison

End On The Subject of Faith Ellington by Strange Bint: 


	3. Part 3 Turnabout

Turnabout  
  
by Strange Bint   
  
Summary: Part Three of this Series. William and Drusilla's daughter is coming of age in Victorian England. Her mother wants her to have a Birthday Party, but she has a vision that someone will betray her daughter.   
  
Rating: R   
  
Author Notes: Again thank you so much to people who supported this 'Verse!!   
  
Story Notes: People who like Spike being a Daddy will love this series and story. Also people who like the history of Slayage   
  
Disclaimer: Just wanted to give some of ME's most tragic characters each other.   
  
Turnabout  
  
By Strangebint   
  
"I can't believe you are traipsing around with that Git when there is work to be done!" William pounded on the table angrily. Faith knew her father's anger would pass. It always did. He always hated every man at first. He wasn't even used to her Watcher, Percy, who had been in the family for a little shy of a decade.   
  
"Actually, it seems there is no work to be done, not by me anyway. I no longer have any slaying powers. So it is a perfect time to traipse, wouldn't you say?" Faith smiled   
  
"Faith's heart can finally have some real fun...not just idleness. Look, it is so pretty. Blue, blue like the boy's eyes. Your birthstone is blue." Drusilla said holding the girl's hand to look at the ring.   
  
"That is why he got it! No one has ever inquired about my birthstone before!" Faith exclaimed to her mother, and they both laughed, as if it were a joke. Faith knew for the first time it wasn't.   
  
"It wasn't that no one else wanted to ask about your birthstone. It was just that all the boys never thought of you as being born. You were like a Goddess that always existed," her mother told her. That was her mother always telling her that she was too special for an ordinary man, and any man who had wronged Faith was of course ordinary.   
  
"Now I am no longer a Goddess, Mum. I am a girl with a regular birthday," Faith said.   
  
"Ooo! And it's coming up! What kind of flowers would you like for your party? What kind of cake?" her mother asked with excitement.   
  
"Mum, I don't have enough friends for a party," Faith sighed. Her mother was always telling her she was special, but then she acted like she was a girl who had gone to finishing school.   
  
"Faith that is just not true! We could have the grandest party ever...Though, I keep feeling that there will be lost love and trust at your party," Drusilla frowned.   
  
"Best not have it then," Faith said.   
  
"Are you birds blind? Dru, you have been saying that someone is to have a horrible falling out with Faith on her birthday. Then this new Romeo whisks in and talks about taking Faith to America. It's obvious it's him, and he is manipulating her to get what he wants! And no doubt he has already gotten it."   
  
"That is it! I am so bloody sick of you eating up every bit of joy around here and crapping it out of you're arse! Do you think I am some naive little lamb? Do you think he is my first lover or even my second! I am no fool. You're little girl is a seasoned veteran. I just now finally have the time and the life to do it right," Faith snapped. Drusilla began to laugh.   
  
"Sorry, sorry." She said. "I just picture your father eating up joy and crapping it out. It's quite a funny image, really. Sorry, as you were with your terrible argument."   
  
"If you are no fool then why are you acting like it? Why are you scampering about giggling over this Sod and not trying to find out who stripped away your bloody powers?"   
  
"William- the- bloody- vampire- hunter misses having his favorite weapon to slaughter with! It made you feel like a big man having a Slayer in the family. I was such a fun little girl. You're favorite little adventure toy. So sorry that I turned out just to be an ordinary woman. "   
  
"You are an ungrateful little brat! I have revolved my life around keeping you safe. The whole time I made it look easy, so you would feel safe. Well, it wasn't easy. Do you know how many buckets of blood and sweat went into keeping you safe and here with us? Don't you think it would have been easier to send you off to live with the Council like they wanted? You think you'd have made it to be an ordinary woman if not for me! Do you think your little watcher boy Percy would have fought by your side in the rat invested shipping docks? Do you think his clumsy lust for you would have been enough to dive into to the sodding ice cold channel to drag out you body, walk two miles with it, and put a knife to the doctor and DEMAND that he keep working until you bloody breathed? Percy would have had another chosen one to watch over in two weeks time, and so would this John if you weren't so insistent on him. The twit could never understand who you are, what you do!"   
  
"Oh! Look at William the great! So more knowledgeable than John, and so much stronger than Percy! It is I, good man, who kept you fresh in the fight. I kept you from falling back into being a Percy. But, even so, Pop, you will always be a Percy and never a John!"   
  
"Are you going to allow her to speak to me this way, Dru?" William laughed.   
  
"Sweetie, she can't rattle you. You know who you are. Now let her find who she is. It's what you could become that troubles you most," Drusilla said quietly. William continued to laugh over his Drusilla's comment.   
  
"You have no idea who I am, little girl, and no idea who you are," William told Faith. "You have done all your fighting with power. Before you had the chosen power, you had the power we gave you. It's been so bloody easy for you because of us! You've never known real fear! You've never had to face what I've had to face- who we've had to face. You are spoiled rotten! I built up my power on my own. You're right. I was weak and a Git! I had nothing but your Mum. So, I made it all my bloody self to protect everything that even meant anything to me. That's real strength! You Slayers have it easy." William chuckled.   
  
"William, how dare you say that to her! You know that-" Drusilla was interrupted by Faith as she rose to stick her face in her father's.   
  
"Us Slayers have it easy, huh. Like that bloody Yank Joan! The one you are so quick to compare me too all the time? The one who makes her mooneyes at you? The one who you gush for every time she comes to town. You wanted a Slayer to have it easy, or do you really want an easy Slayer? I'm sure if Joan is an easy Slayer, like me, she'll take any man she wants no matter how forbidden." Faith yelled.   
  
"Don't." Drusilla whispered.   
  
"You're a home wrecking little bitch! You think having a Slayer in my house doesn't remind me the most hellish times in my life?" William roared and reeled back and smacked the girl.   
  
Faith only felt his hand for a second, like a hot stovetop that you pull away from. Her powers had left her, but pain had felt no different, no more or less painful- until now. Perhaps, her resistance to pain had been the last power to go.   
  
"Well, it's your lucky day! I'm not the sodding Slayer anymore and I'm leaving your house!" Faith gasped as she grabbed the table to keep from falling entirely.   
  
"And that is what you can become! That is what you can become, William. And I don't want that thing in my house!"   
  
Faith was aware her mother was yelling.   
  
She was aware that her mother had stepped between her and her father, and there was yelling and pleading. The pleading was coming from her father, and the yelling was coming from her mother. Her mother was shoving her father, and he was backing up as if he were really shoved. Faith never thought of her mother as very strong. Of course she wasn't strong enough to shove her father, a vampire hunter, out the door, unless it was done with emotional will. But, Faith hadn't thought her mother that emotionally strong. Faith had expected her mother to be crying over an event like this. But, Faith was aware, as she was in her own bubble of thoughts, that her mother was the only one who was not crying. *Little girls tear like paper. * When Faith was about 13 her mother had a vision or a nightmare, as it was hard to tell which was which at times. Her mother had gone briefly mad. Little girls tear like paper. Faith's mother cried and repeated over and over as her father held her and sent Faith next-door as he always did in times like that.   
  
Had her mother had a vision of this moment? Because Faith had torn like paper. Her lip was cut from was single open hand hit. It was pathetic. How DID normal people get along in the world? They were so fragile. It HAD been easy for her. Of course her mother's vision had not been about her! It had probably had been about awful disgusting things that happened to girls. Things Faith had only seen snippets of and was never forced to experience like her poor Mum. Once Faith and her father had chased what they thought was a simple vampire back to its lair. It was before Faith had been chosen to be the Slayer. Her father never would have taken her to fight a vampire like this if he had known. There had been butchered girls at the vampire's lair. There clothes torn to bits still on their bodies. Some of their parts had been chopped off. The vampire had knocked her father down, so that he couldn't get up. The vampire only wanted her. Maybe he wanted Faith's father alive so he could see what he would do. This was no gang fight or bar brawl where non-people turn to dust. This was death and hurt where bodies stay and smell. Faith had started to cry, and she was losing to him.   
  
"Don't cry, Bit. Get mad. See what he did to them doesn't make him powerful, just a coward. It takes no power to cut a girl, only hate. Hate him back. He's just a vampire. You have the power." William said weakly. "I say. Do be quiet, old man." The vampire said, and with that Faith had killed him.   
  
"It's over. These girls aren't suffering anymore." He father as he managed to stand. Faith struggled to help him up. She used all her strength of her fourteen years at the time.   
  
But, then the horror really occurred. One body hadn't been all that mutilated and it rose and turned to Faith.   
  
"He is so very wrong. It's all just starting for me and now I am alone." The vampire girl said. She looked like a girl Faith had went to Elementary school with, but she was too young to be that girl. Faith allowed the vampire girl to back her up against a wall.   
  
"You can be my friend. My very first friend. My friends will be my food and then they will die. Like me. Like you." She said. Her father had staked her from behind as Faith cried.   
  
"Mummy!" Faith had cried as if her mother had been the one staked.   
  
"These are the things Angelus would do! That is what he wanted to do to Mummy." Faith realized it for the first time. She had known it before but she felt it then and it was terrifyingly painful.   
  
A week later she was still a bit distracted. Some man had knocked her out and threw her into the channel. She had felt a bit conscious when she hit the water. She argued with herself to wake up, but decided to float instead. When she awoke she found a man that looked like he'd seen a ghost.   
  
"It's a miracle! She lives," he said.   
  
"Some would say this is where her life truly starts, or is it just closer to ending? When we become women we are more alive than ever, but closer to our deaths" Her mother said. Her mother had this was of talking to everyone, or no one. But, Faith knew her mother was taking to her.   
  
"It's happened now, Mummy, hasn't it? I am chosen. I am the Slayer now." Faith smiled.   
  
"You already know the answer" Her mother smiled back. Faith saw her father staring numbly at her with a large knife in his hand, and her watcher Percy was struggling not to weep.   
  
"Oh, God. Is she really alive, Doctor?" Percy asked the petrified looking man, as if he held the answer.   
  
"Of course I am alive, Percy! Pop, what the matter with you? Didn't you hear Mum? I'm the Slayer now" Faith tried to make contact with her father's blank eyes.   
  
Faith grabbed the knife out of her father's hand. He was holding do weakly she was surprised it didn't drop. She grabbed the blade and bent it. She laughed. It was like bending hardened pull-taffy. She went to tell her father this but before she could she heard the sound of terrible weeping. She thought it was Percy, or maybe the Doctor because when Faith bent the blade he looked so frightened. She felt arms around her waist and look down and saw that it was her father weeping, like she had died. He was on his knees.   
  
"Daddy?" She pleaded. "Have I done something to displease you? I am the Slayer now. I thought you'd be happy. You said that this would be a good day. Do you not think I'm ready?" She held his head.   
  
His hair was wet with seawater. She realized that she was actually holding him up on his knees as he cried. If it wasn't for her head of sunk to the floor. She grew very afraid.   
  
"We can have real adventures now. You can teach me how to fight like the Yank Slayer. You can take me to America to meet her. It will all be just like you said it would be. This is our best day. Daddy, please!" She was crying now. She realized she had almost drowned in the channel and she thought that somehow this had ruined everything.   
  
"No, it's not our best day." Her father whispered and for a second she thought maybe she had died and gone to Hell.   
  
"It's just one good day. There will be a lot more" He smiled through tears. Then he got up, and in doing so he picked up Faith in his arms. It had been a few years since he had done that without reason.   
  
Then it was Faith who began to weep. She didn't really know why. She blamed it on her father being a master of turnabout. He was. He would be fighting under a vampire. It would look like he was a goner for sure. Then, all of a sudden the vampire would be the one under him and it would be the one to die. To this day she didn't know how he did it, and she was the Slayer.   
  
It was like all of these events were happening now. Faith cried for the vampire girl, for her mother, and girls who tore like paper and for herself floating in the channel. She cried for having to hold her father up and the way he took her in his arms. She realized she was trapped in a bubble with things that were over. They had happened years ago. Faith knew something else really bad had just occurred, but she didn't want to face it.   
  
"It's over, Baby." Drusilla said to Faith breaking her bubble as she touched her face.   
  
"Yes, it's over. I'm no longer the Slayer- a Slayer. And I shall go off with John, and you and Pop can have some peace." Faith sniffed.   
  
"Oh Sunshine, no! I mean it is over, as it seems we have found out who the turn coat is." Drusilla laughed sadly as she cleaned Faith's lip. It wasn't as if William had split her lip, it was just a little cut. Lips just bleed a lot when they get cut.   
  
"Daddy didn't turn on us. I drove him to it." Faith began to sob.   
  
How could he say such nasty things about him and the other Slayer? So what if he had a crush on a strong woman? It made sense with all of the caretaking he had to do around here between her mother's bouts with madness and Faith being...well just being Faith.   
  
"Listen to me Divya Ellington!" Drusilla said sternly. Faith's real name was rarely used. It seemed to only be brought out for special occasions.   
  
"One thing I do know is that no woman can bring out anything in a man that isn't already there. It is a man's responsibility to control what other people bring out in him...And...And it goes for us women too. Sometimes I think the whole purpose of my life is to learn that lesson." Drusilla had begun firmly and ended sighing.   
  
Faith had gone to sleep with "Peter Pan" and her lamb doll she had since she an infant. She had heard pounding on the door. She jumped out of the chair quickly and her legs felt like mush. Yes, she was not the Slayer anymore. Her mother and she were in this house all alone. At least her mother knew not to invite any strange people in. Faith grew panicked as she heard loud voices. She stalked closer wonky legs and all.   
  
"Baby please! Let me in! I'm sorry. You know I'm sorry!" It was her father. She was so relieved.   
  
"No! You go off and be sorrier. Think about that beast in you for a few days. Have a debriefing retreat of your own," Her mother said. Faith thought it wasn't wise they needed at least one fighter in the house.   
  
"Drusilla! At least let me tell her I am sorry," William pleaded. Faith knew he was crying.   
  
"If my baby doesn't know that you are sorry then her Mummy can't help you," Drusilla sang.   
  
She was being cruel to him. It wasn't fair as she could get anything SHE wanted out of him by crying. Faith was going to let him in.   
  
"You know I am not in love with the other vampire Slayer. You know I only love you." William sobbed now. Faith was frozen with anguish. Why was she chosen to be the Slayer if she had such evil in her to hurt the people she loved?   
  
"You think the mother hasn't known for years what her child is just learning. You have a crush. But, I know your true love and loyalty is with me. What I do care about is what I foresaw -your turning on your own blood!" Drusilla insisted.   
  
"Well, it is all your fault if you knew it was me and didn't bloody tell me! You know how I bullocks up everything up unless you keep on me! Now, please let me in and bloody warn me next time." William whined.   
  
Faith no longer felt frozen with her own sins. Was this how it was between them? Was it all on her mother? Her father should at least blame Faith for saying such filthy things. Faith rolled her eyes. Blaming this on her mother was the biggest load of bullocks she ever heard. She hoped he was drunk.   
  
"Aren't you the sneaky little spider? But not sneaky enough. I didn't know it was you that would turn on us and if I did I would have thrown you out before you could do it! Go now! Sometimes you have to stumble on a path to learn things, William....Oh and kiss my arse...Telling me it's all my fault." Drusilla insisted.   
  
William sat at the bar shaken yet again now. He was just drunk enough to feel relaxed and Alex, the Git, had somehow found him. He tried to get William to come back home. No matter how much William repeated that his wife and daughter did not want him at the house Alex kept acting as if it was William who didn't want to come back. This grew very tiresome quickly.   
  
Especially when Alex started giving him reasons he was needed at the house. Faith was crying and it scared Alex because he hadn't seen her cry this much since she was a Niblet. Yet, she and Percy were packing her bags for this whole Council debriefing retreat. Faith insisted on going on this final Council trip with Percy alone. She did not even want John Barrymore along. Well, no kidding? How was she going to keep up the lie that she was going on some sort of spiritual retreat if she brought the boy?   
  
Alex told William he was worried about Faith traveling with Percy alone with no powers. William scoffed at this; Percy wouldn't know how to do anything against Faith's will if he wanted to! Alex retorted by saying:   
  
"No shit! But what of vampires?" William said he was sure the Council had thought of that. Alex was outraged, since when did William trust the Council?   
  
"Since they started doing a better job than me, Mate. Since they are more welcome in my house than I am...Now, please, please, bugger off. Don't waste your time on me. Go see my daughter off as you've been the better father," William had said, and that was what finally worked.   
  
The girl at the bar who began talking to him was pretty in that innocent doe-eyed way, though she wasn't acting very innocent. None of the women William ever fancied even looked innocent. Drusilla and that Yank Slayer had a mischievous quality about them. There was one innocent looking one William had fancied, Cicely. God, William hadn't thought of her in a dog's age. Word was she never married, but became a nanny. Maybe he was reminded of Cicely when he smiled at this woman. That was all he seemed to have to do, and she was all over him, as if a drunk bastard was a grand prize. At least someone wanted him, albeit for all the wrong reasons, and he wouldn't be giving this woman what she needed either.   
  
William wondered if it was this way for his daughter. Did she merely have to smile to get all the lover's she pleased? Of course. Thank God she was the Slayer, so she could fend of the ones she didn't want. Or at least she had been the Slayer to fend them off. Faith was such a naive girl in some ways. Did she really think William hadn't known about all of her lovers? Did she forget her father's cunning and his awesome powers of perception, not to mention her mother's seeing powers? Did she really think it would trouble him? Make him love her any less or not want her with him- forever?   
  
It was a good thing his daughter was no longer a Slayer if she was going to be that obtuse and underestimate the selfishness of men. Of course he had known, and the less she had cared about each lover the happier he had been. There was no way that you could raise a girl to have her wits about her in the lowliest parts of the streets, the night, the evil, and the horrible injustice and ignorance of life and not expect her to take on at least one vice. He had told himself he had been proud of her independence and her unconventionality to toy with these stupid boys. She was going to have to be strong to survive as a Slayer. By being in control of her men and treating them as inconsequential she would have the comfort and release sex brings, but she would not be compromised in needing to please some twit. But, it was never that. It was never that at all. It was the fact that the less she needed these men the more she would need him. The less she took these men seriously, the less likely she would take off with one, and the less likely he would have to worry. Not worry of slaying, vampires, and demons that would chop her to bits, but worry of some Wanker that would really rip her heart out.   
  
This John Barrymore would surly do that. A bloody actor! A god damed bloody boxer of all things! How cheap! Oh, but, no it was all okay because all he really wanted was to be a sodding writer! A fighter, a performer that really wanted to write-that was the most controlling kind of man. This was a man that pounded on the world and manipulated it. When that didn't satisfy him he would make up a new world all together by writing it. If he couldn't love the girl properly he'd write a bloody poem or story of how he should love her. William knew the type well enough.   
  
So, all this time William pretended to himself that he was raising his daughter as a good Anarchist would. He raised her to pay no attention rules of society. Virtuous girl marry, and close their eyes and think of England, and wear corsets. Faith would be dead with-in a week of being a Slayer is she worried about all of that rot on top of slaying the demons, he had insisted. Proper sweet girls go to the slaughter everyday, just ask his poor wife, as she had once been one.   
  
That is what the bloody Council wanted of a Slayer. They wanted to teach a girl to close her eyes and think of England while slaying vampires. The Council wanted proper girls, lest she attract attention. If she attract attention the people might get suspicious, and bloody ignorance is what the sodding Watcher's Council depended on to control the battle against Evil their bloody way! It looked like the Council was just as bad as the bloody vampires!   
  
So, the good father refused to let his daughter go off to the sodding Council school, live in their majestic aristocratic Council headquarters. Boy, did it get their knickers in a bunch, that William and Drusilla knew what their daughter was. Did it ever brass them off that Faith's parents were not part of the clueless masses! He could imagine the files that some poor Git clerk had to take care of on just him and his wife alone. The only Slayer parents in history that insisted they be involved in every part of the operation. The only Slayer parents in history that had lived after battles with Angelus when the Slayer herself was a mere babe, or a mere dream in their heads.   
  
How just he and his wife alone tied the Council up in knots. Was Drusilla a seer or just mad? Was William some sort of male Slayer in his own right whose powers did not come about until he met his wife? Did they know more of Angelus, the scourge of Europe then the Ever-Great Council themselves? William and Drusilla had refused to answer any of these questions. Let them squirm. The answers were all open to interpretation anyway and there was nothing that the Council hated more.   
  
William had allowed his daughter to have a Watcher, as he was no fool. They needed a lifeline to all the information on the big bads of the world that only the Buggers had. (Actually, it was Drusilla that convinced William that the watcher was unfortunately necessary.) But, he only let the Council get their mitt's on Faith when it benefited her. No matter how the Council insisted doing it the Ellington's way, of letting her stay with her insane parents, was putting her and the world in danger.   
  
William's way of child rearing seemed twisted. He made sure the moral, proper; influences were standards set to rebel against. Meanwhile, all the lovers, drinking, and killing were just accepted. It was a far cry from how William himself had been raised. But, it wasn't as if he had an ordinary daughter. He wanted her to be able to live life and also keep her alive. So, what if his own mother would die of shock if she knew how the family really was? He had to keep his own mother as one of the clueless masses. This was all the way it had to be! This was the only way it could be done!   
  
A Council member who had followed William and Faith on training one night when she was merely a baby had said that very thing to him about the Council's ways: "The Council handles matters is the way they have to be done. I know you are a smart man and you won't compromise your daughter's future for your own selfishness."   
  
He swore the Sod had been wrong, wrong, wrong. William had discovered the joys of fighting and rebelliousness when he was forced to fight off vampires. For the first time he felt that everything that was his he truly owned, because it had been fought for. More importantly he was finally able to PROVE his love. Something he had always wanted to do with words and never could. Love tasted so much sweeter when you knew things you were not supposed to know, did things you were not supposed to do to prove it and feel it. Didn't he want his daughter by his side so she could discover it all in HIS way, even if his way was the dangerous way? Didn't he want to keep her with him so he could prove his love, and not be some Idiot he saw at Christmas time that asked how the fighting of evil was all coming about?   
  
The worst selfishness had been allowing the lovers. Allowing her to only see men as boys to be toyed with so he could remain the real man. If he had given her to the Council and they had only taken her in and out of the night to slay she would be proper and naive. She would know love with her little watcher boy, Percy. She would think he was as worldly as he thought he was. She would not have teased him, and threw him away for the mere sap he was. Maybe they would have married when she lost her powers, as a sap like that wouldn't marry a girl with more power than he. But, she would know some sort of love and safety.   
  
Instead William had kept Faith for himself. He made a reckless, passionate, willful little up-start. A more powerful version of himself. And now she was off with a boxing actor for some nomadic life that would probably be full of heartbreak. A vampire would probably kill her, as they would take joy in killing a weak former Slayer. All because of his aching selfishness.   
  
He had slapped her while she was powerless! Funny, he had never taken a hand to her when she had the power. How he wished she did have it still to rightfully beat him silly for ruining her life. But Faith has no more power, so his wife stepped in for her.   
  
The Council was so weary of Drusilla. They knew better than to ask anything out right like: Was she a bit of a witch? There was evidence Drusilla survived some sort of relationship with Angelus, the great big bad. Was she a bit mad? Was she a bit compromised? Would she hurt the Slayer or abuse her in some way? They really were such idiots! Drusilla changed the girl's name because she thought it may give her a better life. Drusilla would throw herself and William to slaughter, lest Faith be harmed. William didn't know if he could say the same. He wasn't sure if he could really hurt his wife on purpose, even if it was to save Faith. Though he had hurt her many times accidentally all in the name of keeping her "safe", but wasn't it really just about keeping her? Wasn't that when his hands and tongue got a little too harsh on both his wife and daughter? It was always in the name of safety but it was all about owning.   
  
"Do you need a match for your cigarette?" The girl he smiled at asked. She was a Yank of all things, and her name was Maggie. She had finally stopped her yammering about going to some coming out ball of a very famous debutante. How odd, a bargirl was going to a debutante ball? Well, maybe class lines were finally blurring.   
  
"Yes, I need a lot of things." William smiled.   
  
"Well, I am sure I can get you what you need." Maggie winked. No, she couldn't.   
  
How can you need a daughter when you don't even need a Slayer? Faith had asked him when she was so young she could only see his need for Drusilla. She didn't see his need for her because she hadn't yet tried to pull away. Nothing wrong with a bit of needing. He had said right before she had asked him how he could possibly need her. He was wrong. Need was ugly. Faith had finally seen his need for her tonight. It made her never want to see William again.   
  
"Need makes you do really foolish things." William said to Maggie as the bartender put two shots of bourbon in front of him.   
  
"To need." Maggie toasted.   
  
"There you go. You're a sharp one." He winked and drank.   
  
William laughed as the woman slammed him into the side of the pub. He was very impressed that he was able to keep hold of his whiskey bottle he bought off the bartender before he threw his arse out.   
  
"You know what I like, Love." William told the woman. What was her name? Mary? Weren't all the Yanks named Mary due to the Puritan ancestors?   
  
"Even if I'm getting a bit old for the ruff and tumble...Why are you visiting the mother country again?" He asked her.   
  
"I told you." She whined. "I'm going to a party. My friend had to go, although he didn't really want to. So, a whole bunch of us decided to go, so he wouldn't be alone." She smiled. She had her arms around him. She felt odd to stout to be his wife, much to small boned to be Faith.   
  
"My daughter is traveling to America alone...with some Sod...If I had met you under different circumstances, perhaps I'd ask you and your friends to travel back there with her...I seem to be found of Yanks, despite myself. My wife and I are best friends are a Yank couple...that bloke taught me everything about fighting. Before I met him I had no idea how to hit, or even stab." William told the girl when she wasn't kissing him.   
  
"Did his wife teach you how to kiss?" She asked.   
  
"Not bloody likely." William laughed, "She is one of those birds that fancies other birds...She's in America now visiting that spitfire Slayer I fancy. You heard me! My daughter is right! She gave me a stiffer, that one! It's not as if I shagged her! She's the only one who ever gave me a stiffer other than my wife. Maybe I get stiffers for women who save my life repeatedly in a literal or metaphoric sense. I can't control my wanker's ever move, you know!"   
  
"Indeed." The girl whispered and pressed her breasts against him.   
  
"I didn't know it was so cold out here." He smirked.   
  
"Cold?"   
  
"Well, I'm getting you point...You two points...Women only make those two points when it's cold out, right?" He burst out laughing at his wittiness. "And you're not even giving me one point. That doesn't seem fair." She pouted. She pulled him closer and cupped his crotch.   
  
"Hey now, fight fair...I said I only get a stiffer for my wife." He grinned.   
  
"And for the American...And I'm American." She insisted.   
  
"Alright. Alright. I'll give you my big ol' point." He sighed. "Women." He took out a stake from his sleeve.   
  
"Now who is not fighting fair?" She said and turned to vampire face, and grabbed him by the throat.   
  
"Ha! I knew it! I bloody knew it! I knew I was getting too old to have some pretty little thing crawling all over me for one drink!" William choked and laughed.   
  
"Aw. Don't be so hard on yourself. I was going to sire you. I figured you had about five good years left and then all that handsomeness would sour...Couldn't stand to see that happen, and this way I'd have an escort to my party...Of course, I still could be your Sire. It could take you away from all your troubles that you are trying to drowned much more effectively." She told him. William knew he was sod off drunk, but she still looked pretty even as a vampire.   
  
"Ha! Sired by a bloody twit who has been prattling about a party all night...I even dropped a hint I know the Yank Slayer. I'd have to spend eternity with a woman has a bit more depth and is a better listener." William spat and kicked her. She fell back a little and let go of him, but the bitch got the stake. Too bad women don't have balls.   
  
"You come on all nice, but you really are very hurtful." She cried as she lifted him up by the throat.   
  
"Yep." He managed to choke. Suddenly, he fell flat on his ass with his legs spread out before him. Baby, liked to play with her food before she ate it? No she was turning to dust. A broad shoulders man stood over him now with a stake. His big brow all crinkly.   
  
"Hello, William." He said seriously. "It's a foolish endeavor to go around trying to kill a vampire drunk off your bleedin' ass. Even the tiniest lass can be as strong as an ox."   
  
"Oh Bugger me blind!" William laughed for a good thirty seconds at the ridiculousness of his life. "This has been an abominable day! And I so wanted to die on a good one. Well, cheers mate."   
  
He laughed as he crawled over to the whiskey bottle and drank the remainder of it. He closed his eyes and only opened them when he felt the man kicking his foot lightly.   
  
"Bloody Hell! What do you want? We've been through this all before! Do you expect me to beg or get all-religious with Hail Mary's? You know that isn't my style. I'm too drunk to feel any pain right now, so if you want that just tie me somewhere 'till tomorrow." William told him as he sat himself up against the wall. Suddenly his face was overcome with insight, and he smiled.   
  
"Oh, you expect me to beg for my life because you think that my wife will become mad with grief with out me... Sorry too late. She finally realized she's better off with me gone with no help from you. And she won't blame herself neither. Drusilla knows it's all my bloody fault, even if she did let you go those times...And lemme tell you somethin', Mate. She did NOT let you go because of some hidden lust-lorne-love-hate fffeeling. She had a vision you'd somehow save our daughter's neck. Sometimes her visions are a bit off. Seeing is not bloody calculus, you know...Oh, oh I get it! You do save our daughter! You kill her no good bastard father, lest he smack her around and ruin her life some more...Oh, it's all so Greek...I love it!" William laughed.   
  
He closed his eyes again and after a moment opened them to see the man still standing there.   
  
"...And by the way if you try to Sire me to get me after my girls I just won't drink the bloody...blood and if you somehow get it down me my daughter knows if I asked to be invited in to kill me on sight...So, sod you there is everything!...Now on with our tragedy, which is really more Roman actually the fall of the Git emperor who turned to be his own worst enemy."   
  
"Please shut-up. You haven't changed at all. Yap, yap, yap and I have the reputation for torture?" The Irishman said flatly to him.   
  
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~  
  
Faith smoothed her skirt something she had been doing a lot of since her powers had left her. It was surprising how restless one's hands can be when the old things you used to do with them you could no longer do with them.   
  
"Here is your tea, Love." Percy said softly.   
  
He handed her the warm cup and touched her face where her lip was almost all healed with his soft hands. Faith closed her eyes as they misted. Percy's actions made her miss her parents, and that was pathetic. It was good that she was no longer the Slayer. The other Slayer had been on her own for ages. The other Slayer had completely rejected the Council by the time she was Faith's age, as her father often reminded her. When Faith set off with John she would never have to hear her father or Willa or Alex talk of Joan the vampire Slayer again.   
  
"This time with you has been so restful, Percy. When will I meet some other members of the Council? I would really like to meet a female watcher! I am so glad to hear that the Council is allowing it finally, to me it only makes sense." Faith said sipping her tea.   
  
"Well, I'm not sure if I agree. Women, who aren't chosen of course, are weaker than men, and are therefore just more physically vulnerable to attacks."   
  
"Oh Percy! This is why I can only tolerate you for so long!" Faith said good-naturedly   
  
"My mother somehow survived the scourge, and my father used to take me out to slay the minute I reached twelve. It is more than just physical strength."   
  
"You have a very good point, Love. I completely agree logic and intelligence are just as important as strength and they should be tested above and beyond physical strength. That is why your father was such a bloody fool, if we had you in our care we would have spent those years giving you the proper mind set not just throwing you into the breach. It could have made you completely crude."   
  
"Well, it doesn't matter anymore, does it? Half or completely crude I am not and should not have been a Slayer, and I am to take off with John and be in my own care."   
  
"Faith...if things were different...if the Council could find a way to get your powers back... Would you stay here with me- with the Council- for a time and study with us? It would be wonderful. We could stay here for a while. Take a break from those horrid streets. Do more research." He said.   
  
"The Council could bring my powers back, so I can stay here and research?"   
  
"Forgive Mr. Windom, Ms. Ellington. He is getting rather a head of himself." An older man came in.   
  
"Mr. Price! It is Mr. Price, right? The head of the entire Council!"   
  
"Of course! What Mr. Windom is trying to ask you is would you be interested in getting your powers back?"   
  
"Yes! Of course! It would be bloody brilliant to feel myself again. I suppose I could not go off with John for good, and I suppose I would have to mend things with my father...I mean, anything else would be irresponsible, right?"   
  
"Wrong. Miss Ellington." Price said firmly   
  
"Well right about going off with that Barrymore fellow, that would be terribly terribly bad...for the world." Percy stammered.   
  
"What is going on here?" Faith demanded looking between the two men.   
  
"What is 'going on', is your true coming of age as a Slayer. You're powers will return to you in time, but we hope that in light of recent events that you have come to realize that your place is here." Price said grandly.   
  
"What do you mean my powers will return in time? How would- YOU! You used some sort of magics on me to take away my powers!" She bellowed and stood in the man's face. Price rolled his eyes.   
  
"Yes, you didn't think the Council had the power to do that did you? Well, we do. You are very lucky, Miss Ellington. We usually don't inform our Slayers who reach their 18th birthday of the test that we perform." Price sighed regretfully.   
  
"This is your idea of a test? You could have gotten me bloody killed!" Faith gritted her teeth.   
  
"Oh Divya, Please! Your father almost gets you killed nightly by either running ahead like an impulsive fool too quickly or holding you back. The counsel is made of men of intelligence and has been testing Slayers for ages in a carefully moderated fashion." Percy snapped.   
  
"My father is a good honest man with more intelligence in his finger than you sods have in your whole bloody Council!" Faith spat.   
  
"You say your father is a good man, Miss Ellington. But, who's given you your biggest bruise since you have lost all your powers and become a defenseless woman?" Mr. Price asked smugly.   
  
"You told him? He told you?..Of course! He tells you everything, doesn't he? Unless you already knew..Unless you worked some magics on my father to make him hurt me!" Faith roared as un-spilt tears came into her eyes.   
  
"We did no such thing." Mr. Price sang.   
  
"I don't believe a sodding word you say!" Faith sobbed now and covered her mouth.   
  
"I think you do." Mr. Price said lightly.   
  
"Miss Ellington, I've afraid you've inherited your parents' over sensitivity. Percy has told me that your father has encouraged you to fight with your emotions rather than learn to put them aside to concentrate on you approach in battle...I can see from the way that this argument with us is going how your emotions can leave you compromised in battle." Price lectured.   
  
Faith couldn't imagine how she would have survived schooling here. In fact she did not want to survive one more second of being here. She would demand her powers back and go. She wouldn't tell her parents what the Council had done. She didn't want to see her father murder human men, especially men who weren't worth it. She could tell Percy had just been led along, but she was to angry to think of forgiving him now.   
  
"My father has taught me plenty about approach, and he taught me how to channel my emotions to my advantage. I am never compromised in battle. If you keep pushing me I shall show you both how uncompromised I am, even being a physically vulnerable woman." She threatened Price and glared at him.   
  
"Don't worry you will have your opportunity to do that. You really are quiet the special girl- more headstrong than that Yank what's-her-name that we lost control over. I would not want to lose you, Divya. So, I have created these special circumstances." Price smiled at her unblinking as she glared at him.   
  
He was an academic who had probably seen battle in his day. But, certainly not a free-thinking academic. She knew when her father grew old and tired looking like Price he would somehow do an even better job at staring down threats.   
  
"If you would really like your powers back you can have them, but you have to be under our instruction...Of course you can still see your family whenever you like...We are not a jail, but I don't know why you would want to. But, you're free to do as you please." Price continued.   
  
"Your saying you will only let me be the Slayer again if I stay here and continue working with you Sods. The great bloody Council who have lied and spied on and insulted my family over the years and I am no longer to work with my family who have never lied to me?"   
  
"In a manner of speaking--"   
  
"Well, you can bight my sodding ass! All of you Goddamned Wankers!" Faith spat.   
  
"Divya please be reasonable!" Percy pleaded.   
  
"Oh goodness!" Mr. Price laughed. "I really don't know what is occurring in the world. Did we just hit a bad batch for this generation of Slayers, or is it a sign that the whole world has gone wonky with the changing times...I thought it was a Yank problem with that other girl. I was so happy when she died, albeit temporarily, to have a girl from our Great Britain chosen! At first I was overjoyed that her family had fought off the scourge of Europe. But, clearly it is better to have a naive simple girl be chosen. Remember that Chinese one, she was lovely-"   
  
As Price spoke he walked from the reading room to the lobby of the mansion and into a steel cage that had been sitting there. There had been many stakes, swords, crosses, chains and other devices around the otherwise lavish like mansion that was the Council's estate. Faith had seen them and thought nothing of them. When you work in this business you had all kinds of accessories for it lying around. She did not have a cage though. She was the take no prisoners type. Even though she did not have one, she knew one rarely oneself in their own cage though.   
  
"Shut Up!" Faith barked. "It is interesting that you bring up my family's history with Angelus. You want me to stop working with my family. My parents and their friends have fought off the scourge three times. One time they even had to contend with his Sire bitch."   
  
"Darla, She was turned by the Master himself in a Virginia colony where she-"   
  
"SHUT-UP, Percy!" Faith yelled.   
  
"Well, you really should know this, Divya." Percy insisted.   
  
"You don't even have a photo of Angelus. He could walk right up to you and say he was a delivery boy and you Wankers would invite him in! My father survived his fists. My mother survived...she survived more...My family has survived the scourge three times! Three times more than any of your damn Council!"   
  
"Not all of your family, Dear," Price said smugly.   
  
"Mr. Price!" Percy yelped in shock at the man's insult.   
  
"I think I understand why you put yourself in that bloody cage!" Faith said as she stalked up to the cage.   
  
"Yes, Angelus killed all the men in my mother's family, including her first fiancé' and the servants...He wanted to be the only man in her life...He wanted to drive her insane! So he could use her power for himself!...He told her it was all for the best...He would provide her with all she needed of the world...It all sounds very bloody familiar, doesn't it, Price?"   
  
"Your mother is said to be a little mad. I suppose you inherited that too, because I don't see any familiarity in this story, though I am sorry-"   
  
"Sir, I think she is saying that we are like Angelus with wanting to have her power-" Price interrupted Percy sharply.   
  
"I know what she is saying, Boy and it is ridiculous! Our main purpose is to direct and guide these girls, not for the good of them and their Mummies and Daddies, but for the good of the bloody world! And this girl is too bloody selfish to understand that!"   
  
"Sir, if I am may be so bold as to say that it is in the world's best interest that the Slayer also be well cared for and protected." Percy insisted.   
  
"Yes, yes and that is why we are doing this." Price returned to his dignified manner.   
  
"Doing what? What more of your foolish rituals do I have to partake in? I've already told you, I am not interested in the slaying power if it's yours to give." Faith insisted.   
  
"We will be releasing a very special vampire in a moment. You have friends in common. You have been staying here for two days, Ms. Ellington. You know these surroundings by now, or you should. There are tools here to fight with." Price said.   
  
"Divya, you know I love you, more than I should, but I am afraid for you...if you don't learn to focus without emotion getting in the way you won't make it much longer...And I think the scourge is your biggest emotional pitfall...And this is why Divya... This is why we are doing this. It has to be done. There is no other way...Please don't be emotional! Please focus! I know you can do it!" Percy insisted. He smiled sadly as he got into the cage.   
  
"YOU FUCKING COCK SUKERS!"   
  
"I don't think she is off to a very pleasing start." Price sighed.   
  
"Percy, tell me you haven't released Angelus on me when I have no power." Faith demanded between outrage and fear.   
  
"The Council thought it best that you handle a vampire with out your power. You said that you had done it since you were twelve. You can do it, Divya!" Percy said in a strained voice.   
  
"Percy! Tell me you didn't release the vampire who's tortured my parents on me! You have no idea what you've done! Did you make a deal with him? Did he tell you he had a soul? He's tricked you! He'll kill us all! You think a cage can protect you? He owns that cage you're in now! He'll use me to get at my parents! He'll kill my father and- and- do worse to my mother! Give me my powers back! It's our only chance" Faith pleaded as she grabbed Percy's hand through the bars.   
  
"Dina, your parents aren't the center of the world. You are far more important than they are and you should know that...Just stay calm it is one vampire in very controlled circumstances."   
  
"Percy! Stop talking to the girl! We've already made this test way too easy for her!" Price snapped.   
  
"You're the one being controlled! My parents are the center of the world because he will start with them at the center and attack the rest of the world from all the way around. Give me my powers back, you Buggering Fuck and I will save you life in return!" Faith had grabbed Price by his remaining hair through the bars.   
  
"I do have the control here, Miss Ellington. But, I cannot give you your powers back now even if I wanted to. Unfortunately, they will return slowly in the next few days. Percy took them away with modern medicine-muscle relaxes. We stopped using magic to take away the Slayer's powers long ago. It was too risky. It was a bit of a fib that I could keep your powers away forever. I was just trying to get you away from that family...But, I guess we can't control you...Of course if you die tonight, there will be another."   
  
"She will not die tonight! She will get control of herself. Won't you Divya?" Percy tried to save soothingly.   
  
"None of us have control here!" Faith cried and let go of Price's hair.   
  
"What is taking this vampire so long?" Price grumbled at the delay of the vampire.   
  
"The scourge is probably rapping your wife to death!" Faith spat.   
  
"My God!... This girl is so vulgar, Percy. Couldn't you have tried to discourage that a little?" Price grumbled.   
  
"Hello!" An American voice exclaimed on the top of the stairs about thirty feet above the cage.   
  
"You are American." Faith said sternly.   
  
"You say that like it's an insult. I am very offended." The impish boyish man said as he jumped down the balcony of the stairs. Faith grabbed a sword from the wall.   
  
"What is a girl to do with a sword she can barley hold up?" The boy asked.   
  
"I may not have a lot of strength, but when you hold a big sword you have a tendency not to need it." Faith said as she swung at him, but he jumped away and laughed.   
  
"I don't know if that is true." The boy said and grabbed the sword by the blade and pulled it away from her.   
  
"Look! I've cut my hands." He tisked." Better make them nice and neat." The boy then stabbed the sword through each of his palms.   
  
"You're not Angelus." Faith let out an odd laugh.   
  
"He wouldn't hurt himself to impress me. He would only hurt me or someone else for that...and he's a Mick" She threw the tea tray at him.   
  
"You mean that didn't impress you at all? I can cut holes in my hands just like Christ had. Only I barely suffer. I am a real God!" He said his elfish face turning into a vampire's.   
  
"We'll I wasn't raised with religion." Faith told him.   
  
"What?" He demanded. Turning back into human face.   
  
"I wasn't raised to believe in God or Christ. Maybe it would be more awe inspiring if I had...Though, I don't know it may still have just been disgusting." She said backing up the stairs as she threw a stake at him.   
  
"Well, that is just awful! I was a Puritan. How can a Slayer be Godless?" He sang in dismay as he caught the stake.   
  
"I don't know. The same way a vampire can be raised a Puritan, I suppose." She said as he lunged at her.   
  
She jumped back a kicked him down the stairs, but before he fell he grabbed her and they both fell. Faith landed next to the vampire who grabbed her by the hair. She held her cross necklace up to his face. He let go of her when his face started to smoke.   
  
"Now that is very ironic." He said as he felt the cross shaped scar on his face.   
  
"Why do you have a cross, Godless girl?"   
  
"Why do you think, Wanker?" She rolled her eyes as she scrambled up the steps.   
  
"You're doing wonderfully, Divya!" Percy called.   
  
"Sod off!" She snapped to Percy and turned back to the vampire, "And by the way! Christ didn't get impaled by the hands, but by the wrists. They just show it though the hands in all the bloody paintings because it looks prettier, I suppose."   
  
"Well, there is just no impressing you. You know no one likes a know-it-all!" The vampire said. There was a loud banging coming from downstairs. Faith realized someone was knocking on the door.   
  
"What it that?" Price demanded from inside the cage.   
  
"Percy!" Faith demanded.   
  
"Why is everyone asking me?" Percy pleaded.   
  
"Maybe it takes a lot of friends to impress you." The vampire smiled. As he began walking down the stairs. Faith stood out of breath at the top of the stairs. It seemed her ankle was twisted.   
  
"You dirty backstabbing...Ha! Your friends can't come in, Penn. They aren't invited by us- the owners of the house!" Percy spat. As Faith began to run towards the bedroom door she heard Price say:   
  
"Actually, Percy they only have to be invited in by people who live in the house...and since no one actually lives here...They can come in!"   
  
"How is this bloody possible? How was he able to tell them where he was going! Oh God, Divya! Divya...Faith, Faith...run!" Faith heard Percy panicking as she locked the bedroom door behind her and struggled to push a bureau in front of it.   
  
It was very difficult. She didn't think a girl with a twisted foot could accomplish such a thing, but she had. The minute she did she heard them pounding to get through the door.   
  
There was a fire escape down to the ground but her ankle was twisted to bits. When she was so little she had yet to know of anything other than her mother or father Faith would bump her head or skin her knee and cry like the world was ending. Her mother then would take her into her arms and say:   
  
"Look at me. Look at me, Faith. Be in me." And something would happen and the pain had stopped and her mother was smiling. Of course, nothing had really happened. It was just a mother's trick of convincing a child that there was nothing to cry about. Faith was crying now, as she thought of her mothers face. She would never see that crazy beautiful woman again. Drusilla would probably try to pretend Faith hadn't died. Drusilla would pretend to talk to Faith until William couldn't take it anymore and he would snap at her and she would cry.   
  
Faith thought of all this as she forced her way to the window she opened it and screamed as there was a vampire growling in her face. With out even thinking she pushed it off the fire escape and locked all the windows.   
  
She heard the door giving. "Come out little Slayer! Don't you want to come out for your birthday party?"   
  
She opened the dresser drawers to find bottles and bottles of holy water. She was surprised the Council made it this easy and there wasn't some kind of puzzle lock to open each bottle. She soaked herself in the holy water and put the remaining bottles in her pockets. She grabbed Percy's pencil.   
  
"Little Slayer." One of the vampires said as it came crashing through the door." I met the real Slayer in America once...I think you're prettier."   
  
"You mean pretty deader." Another one joked and grabbed her as he pulled his hand away she punched him.   
  
"Her skin burns!" He screamed.   
  
"I am so tiered..of hearing...about the other Slayer!!" She wailed and she staked one with the pencil.   
  
"Bitch! That was my lover!" The other one screamed and threw her on to the bed.   
  
She struggled with the vampire. The holy water wasn't burning as badly as before. The vampire got on top of her. She heard the sound of breaking glass behind them.   
  
"Who are you? Shit!" The vampire grunted. Faith heard a blade go through the vampire's neck. Blood was about to pour all over Faith's own head right before it turned to dust.   
  
"Hi Daddy." She smiled.   
  
"Hi Bit!" He smiled back.   
  
"Didn't hurt breaking through the glass like that?" She asked.   
  
"I've got a spell special delivered from Auntie Willa that gives me a bit of Slayer strength...But, yes, yes it hurt a bit...The spell was to be for you, but everything went a bit wonky and-"   
  
"Oh Daddy! I was so awful to you! I think this whole time I've been most afraid that I would never see you again to tell you how sorry I am!" Faith allowed herself to cry now.   
  
"You shouldn't be sorry am the one who should be bloody sorry! I am an awful awful man sometimes, Bit. I've done a lot of things wrong...I just thought if I kept you with me I wouldn't lose you, and that was bloody selfish of me." William cried.   
  
"Where else would I have gone? Here? Do you know what they've done?"   
  
"Yes! Yes! And it's all my bloody fault not figuring on them being the one's behind this. Not doing my homework on them! No-"   
  
"Daddy how can you say that? If anyone is to blame for this it's me! I was trying so hard to get away I didn't stop and think-"   
  
"I can tell the Lass is your daughter she goes on about pointless subjects in dire times. She looks like her mother though thank God. Now would you mind helping here, Will?" A tall man good-naturedly chided William from the hallway.   
  
He had been the only thing keeping the vampires from the bedroom. But, he seemed to be all that was needed. A vampire charged him and he ripped the thing's head off with his bare hands. Faith's mouth dropped open. Once or twice, she had gotten lucky and she broke a vampire's neck, but she had never seen anyone rip off a head.   
  
"Yeah, I'd weep if you went down savin' my arse. It just wouldn't be just!" William snapped and he did not do so good-naturedly.   
  
He looked furious at the man. No one would have ever guessed he'd been weeping.   
  
"Daddy, who is this?" Faith questioned. There were about five vampires on the stairs whispering the same question probably.   
  
"You're hurt." William said as he noticed her hobbling.   
  
"I can manage."   
  
"Get her out of this house!" William barked at the man.   
  
"I won't leave you alone!" Faith yelled. As the man continued to fight with the vampires. Each one seemed convinced they could take him on a different way and they were always wrong.   
  
"Hi Faith! Happy Birthday! I hope you like your present. I'm sorry I'm borrowing it." A voice said climbing threw the broken window.   
  
"Uncle Alex! Oh, I love my present!" Faith smiled as Alex shot the crossbow at the vampires fighting with the tall man.   
  
"Sorry!" Alex grimaced as he accidentally hit the man in the shoulder. The man merely shot a glare at Alex and pulled the arrow out of his arm and staked a vampire with it.   
  
"Nice shot!...I'm not alone anymore now go with him." William demanded. The man walked gingerly up to Faith as if she were a snake, even though he was twice her size and she probably couldn't take him if she had her powers.   
  
"No, let him stay here. I don't know how many more there are and he seems to be very capable. I'll be fine here."   
  
"Don't worry!" A voice called from the bottom of the stairs. "There is only one more." Drusilla was standing with a vampire's hands wrapped around her throat. Everyone started panicking and yelling at once.   
  
"Drusilla!" The tall man yelled in concern as if he had always knows her mother like the rest of them did.   
  
"Quiet! No one move!" Drusilla yelled sharply and everyone listened.   
  
"Look at me, Dearie...Look at me! Be in me. Be in me." Drusilla cooed to the vampire as she looked in its face. The vampire let go of her and stared into her eyes. That is when she let out a yelp and staked it. Everyone looked shocked accept for William who smiled.   
  
"Mummy!" Faith called and went to run down the stairs and forgot her sprained ankle. The large man caught her and carried her the rest way down.   
  
"Mummy, why are you here?" Faith cried.   
  
"What and miss my girl's party? Oh look hands burnt you're pretty dress. He'll have to get you a new one." She smiled. Faith saw burn marks in the shape of hands on her wet dress.   
  
"Are they really all gone?" Price was asking her mother from the cage.   
  
"Most are dead...The smart ones ran off...including your little boy. He misses his Daddy." Drusilla was saying to the tall man with a smile. The man looked at her like she was making fun of him.   
  
"I don't understand any of this! How did they know where we were? How did YOU know where we were? How on earth did you kill that vampire, Mrs. Ellington?" Percy demanded weakly.   
  
"So much for your controlled little test!" Faith barked. But then she saw that Percy was beaten.   
  
"Percy, what happened? Did they get in the cage?" She asked.   
  
"No-no...It was I who got out...When they were coming in I ran out to help. I think I got one, but there were too many. Then that he came through the door and he did very well, I must say. If he hadn't got me back to the cage, I'd have died...Who are you? A rogue demon hunter who is a friend of William's?" Percy asked.   
  
"He's neither. He's just a gutter rat who owes us big." William spat.   
  
"Are you using witch-craft to fight? Because I'd advise against it." Price told the man. The man just glowered.   
  
If Faith hadn't heard him speak before he would have thought he was mute. This wasn't the first time her parents had pulled up a mysterious friend. They had seemed to spend time learning ever corner of the hidden streets he could before Faith was born. William said he HAD to in order to protect Drusilla from Angelus. He may have been right, but Faith knew he enjoyed the reckless courage love had given him. Still it was bravery with out any given power other than quick lessons from Alex. And what power did her mother possess to survive? Unlike her father she had to do it long before she had his love. Faith didn't like to think about it, and couldn't fully understand why.   
  
"So, now we know who the REAL lost traitor is, Percy. You should have told me it was you Percy instead of letting me believe it was my William." Drusilla said as she grabbed the bars of the cage. Price backed up.   
  
"I am not a traitor, Mrs. Ellington! I was trying to give Divya her independence!...I know it all went a rye ..and I'm terribly sorry!" Percy pleaded handing Drusilla the key to unlocking the cage.   
  
"Silly Percy! He's like a Yank that owns a plantation with peach trees. You can't give a thing to someone that was already theirs even if you were the one that was keeping them from it!" Drusilla laughed.   
  
"Um, Percy...Do you really want to step out of the cage now with that mad woman there?" Price asked.   
  
"My mother is not a mad woman!" Faith spat.   
  
"I know that Mrs. Ellington seems a bit..touched. But I have known her for years, and I can assure you that she is the gentlest of---" Before Percy could finish Drusilla sprang on him.   
  
"Traitor! You hurt my girl! You hurt my little girl! I'd rather you strike her than play with her mind! But, you can quit all that tiresome breathing for either!" She was screaming shrilly as she began strangling Percy.   
  
"Drusilla! Dru, no!" The tall younger man was saying gently. He had tried to lift Drusilla off of Percy, buy Percy just came with her hands as the man lifted her.   
  
"Don't you fucking touch her! You stay away from her!" Faith's father was screaming as he ran down the stairs with a stake with Alex after him.   
  
Even her father didn't swear that badly. But, Faith was more concerned with the totally beat red Percy. Percy was right her mother was such a gentle person. Drusilla was like the gentle child that Faith had never been allowed to be. When Faith came home filled with blood and dirt Drusilla had her world of flowers and dolls waiting for Faith to visit. Faith did not want to think of her mother in any other world. It was too painful.   
  
"Mummy no!" Faith cried and began sobbing. Drusilla looked at her daughter and let go off Percy's throat.   
  
"Sunshine, what's wrong? We have to kill the monsters, don't we?" Drusilla asked coyly as she was hugging her daughter as Percy gasped for breath on the ground.   
  
"Mum! Percy is not a monster he is a man...He made a mistake. He loves me in his own way." Faith pleaded.   
  
"I know, Pet...But, maybe he is the worst kind of monster...The kind that gets in here..and in here." Drusilla said touching Faith's head and her chest where her heat lay underneath racing.   
  
"But, he has a soul." The tall man said sadly.   
  
"Ah, like you...I am too old for you now, anyway." Drusilla said to him as she hugged Faith.   
  
"No!...I-I mean yes...I mean no...I am so so sorry. I'd do anything I could for you to make things right." He said painfully. Faith saw her father stalk over to the cage now with Alex in tow.   
  
"Miss-ter P-rice." William sang.   
  
"Umm..Hello...Mr. Ellington...I suppose I should apolog---" Price was interrupted by William slamming his head into the bars of the cage.   
  
"William! You have never forgotten how to make the most bleak times fun!" Drusilla called to him as Price was trying to hold the door of the cage shut so William couldn't get into it.   
  
"That is because I never stopped loving you, Poodle." William smiled as he went into the cage and hit Price clean in the face.   
  
"Remember! You promised to stop when I told you to." Alex said to William as he leaned outside the bars and kicked through them at Price when he fell.   
  
"But, you didn't make me promise that I couldn't get a shot in too."   
  
"I do love a good cage match! Don't you, Love!" Drusilla squealed to Faith.   
  
"You will be going to jail for this you know." Price gasped.   
  
"Great! I do hope we're cell mates. I think it would look a lot like this, don't you?" William asked as he pushed the man up against the bars.   
  
"You can be in jail for murdering heroic young girls!...And I can be in jail for murdering a pompous, yellow-bellied...Wanker, who locks himself up in cages to protect himself against his sodding..Filthy crimes!...Wait that doesn't quiet work, does it?" William said as he hit the man repeatedly.   
  
"I am not a criminal you crude twit! You are! I keep my distance to fight the monsters, so I don't become like them! Like you! Look at you, Ellington! I know of you! We all know of you! That disgusting Gothic poet... The crass opportunist that wrote about his times with the scourge of Europe as bloody fiction!.. The dirty demon fighter who took the Slayer to the streets too soon! You were an Oxford man, an intellectual! Look at what you are now!" Price spat as William let him go on with out hitting him.   
  
William smiled widely. "Yeah, I'm an Oxford man who improved on his writing skills and boxing skills after he graduated...They love it when you improve on something they taught you and get all famous. They take all the bloody credit! It's very irritating." He punched Price harder than ever.   
  
"Oh God! He's going to kill him, isn't he? And you all are just going to watch like animals!" Percy demanded as he still sat on the floor.   
  
"Don't worry. I have it under control, Win...Nice shot, William. I think the ass finally lost consciousness!" Alex cheered.   
  
"Mummy, don't let Daddy kill the head of the Council. We'll never get to read any of their books that way and I really want to learn more about the 15th century Greek Slayer." Faith said to her mother.   
  
"William! It's time to go! We are pekish and tiered!" Drusilla called.   
  
"In a moment, Poodle." He called. "Yeah, just one more minute." Alex said.   
  
"Daddy!" Faith snapped. "William, right now!" Drusilla snapped. Faith saw that the young vampire fighter had left.   
  
End 


End file.
